THE celebrated foreign correspondent Ronald Payne, who made his home at Minster Lovell, has died aged 87.

Mr Payne, a former marine with a history degree from Oxford, was a world authority on espionage and terrorism, and the author of several best-selling books on spying.

He established himself as one of Fleet Street’s elite correspondents, covering conflicts in Lebanon, Cyprus, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. His foreign adventures became the stuff of newspaper legend as he escaped death in many war zones.

When his car broke down crossing a pontoon bridge over the Suez Canal during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he was rescued by an Israeli officer under heavy fire.

He ended up being taken to General Ariel Sharon’s headquarters, from where he filed exclusive reports before eventually being delivered to the Egyptian side of the bridge with a full tank of petrol.

Other assignments included interviews with Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, whom he first met soon after the military despot came to power.

The son of a Methodist minister from Ripon, in Yorkshire, Mr Payne attended Bedford School.

He later joined the Royal Marines. Although he narrowly missed the D-Day landings, he saw active service in Holland.

After demobilisation, he read history at Jesus College, University of Oxford, where he wrote for student magazine Isis. His professional career in journalism began on the Reading Mercury, followed by the Evening Standard and The Daily Telegraph.

From there he was sent to Paris to cover the political turmoil in North Africa. The Algerian war of independence established his reputation as a French specialist long before television news changed the face of the media industry.

For two decades he covered France’s wars in North Africa and later Vietnam. He also worked in Cairo, both in the lead-up to the disastrous Suez expedition and after the British and French invasion.

In the early 1960s became the diplomatic correspondent on the new Sunday Telegraph. But he also continued to work abroad, covering Middle Eastern Wars and the rise of Col Gaddafi.

Mr Payne wrote 11 books, including the best-selling The Carlos Complex in 1977, which investigated Carlos the Jackal and showed terrorism’s global links.

He also produced books about the Falklands War, Israel’s secret service and the story of the German refugee ship Wilhelm Gustloff, sunk in the Baltic in 1945 with huge loss of life.

In 1994 Mr Payne moved to Minster Lovell with his third wife, Celia Haddon, pet correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. In 2005 he published One Hundred Ways To Live with a Cat Addict about their life.

Mr Payne died at home on May 25. A service of thanksgiving was held at St James’s Church, Ramsden, on June 4.

He is survived by his wife, Celia, and step-daughter Miranda Payne.