Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents' Club to remember Mick Deane, cameraman killed in Cairo

A wake will be held for Sky News cameraman Mick Deane at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Central on Tuesday.

The former Hong Kong resident and club member was killed last week while covering the violence in Cairo.

Deane, 61, lived in Hong Kong from 1988 to 1994, working initially as a freelance cameraman and then for Britain's ITN. His wife, Daniela, worked at Reuters. Both were active FCC members and Daniela served on the club's board of governors.

Adrian Brown, a friend for nearly 25 years and a fellow FCC member and cameraman, spoke fondly of a close friend and consummate professional.

"We covered the Tiananmen Square student protests in 1989 together and forged a strong friendship from then on," Brown said.

"Over the years we kept in contact and kept bumping into each other all over the world. A month ago I ran into him in Cairo. He told me he was going to retire in a year and travel the world with his wife."

Brown added that what made Deane's death particularly tragic was the fact that he had just been given the all-clear after earlier being diagnosed with cancer.

"He was free of cancer and was a year away from enjoying a comfortable retirement that he'd worked very hard for," Brown said. "That's what is the most heartbreaking thing about it all."

Brown described Deane as a very modest man with no ego at all when it came to his own abilities "in the way that genuine people always are".

"It's true to say he was a man that no one had a bad word to say about," Brown said. "He was even talking about coming back to Hong Kong to catch up with friends here, as he always said it was his favourite Asian city. I'll miss him enormously."