Jon Leyne compelled attention whenever he turned up on Today or on BBC News with a story from a hot spot. He also wrote and broadcast with depth and wit on rowing, having rowed throughout his formative years at Winchester, Exeter, Walton Rowing Club, York City RC and Oriel College. He covered the Boat Race, Henley, world championship regattas and the 1992 Olympics.
His emails from Tehran to the British Association of Rowing Journalists always began "Greetings from the Axis of Evil", which our members instinctively believed to refer to the Amateur Rowing Association (now called British Rowing).
He was as able an interpreter of rowing as he was of political movement and terrorist outrage, peppering his reports with asides while showing that he knew the subject from the inside of a boat. On his visits home from Washington, Tehran or Cairo, he would often pop up by the riverside to catch up on the sport and air his latest idea for programmes on Middle Eastern culture.
Walton RC members will remember his long evening sculling outings, hidden by a shaggy mop that was so different from his later appearance, and the warm welcome at his unbelievably chaotic family home. When a local pub, the Swan, installed a new grand piano, Jon commandeered it. He was addressed as "Rachmaninov" by the landlord ever after.