Three minutes after the author of this story wanted to send a word of encouragement to the Erasmus-family with the hope that Des Erasmus aka 'Oom Des' would get well soon, he passed away.

He died at Swakopmund at the age of 81.

Oom Des worked as a journalist in South West Africa and Namibia for about 60 years. He was and will always be respected for his incredible news-nose and craft of the Afrikaans language.

Everywhere he went, he was respected, and he had a knack to scoop everyone with good stories.

In an interview about 10 years ago, when he celebrated 50 years in the journalism business, Oom Des told The Namibian that he always looks forward to another big story to happen.

Well, a big story did happen on 13 September 2018 at Swakopmund at 11h11: it was Oom Des' passing away, which every good newspaper took note of and reported on.

There is not enough space to tell of all his many experiences in the news world, but each day (like today), his career was carefully and correctly recorded on the pages of newspapers. He is a Namibian journalist icon of the old-school, and his life was to write.

Tragedies, suspense, politics and humour are threaded through his thousands of articles He has written about 3 000 columns - and that is beside the news stories.

Oom Des took his first steps as a professional journalist on 1 August 1959, when he joined the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and became the youngest area editor for the SABC.

After about six years, he entered the newspaper world via the former "Die Suidwester" and its subsidiary "Joernaal", where he served as a reporter, and eventually editor until 1981.

Since then he served as the reporter and finally editor of the Namibia Media Holdings-group's Die Republikein, as well as its subsidiaries, Sunday Republikein, Times of Namibia and Tempo, and the Erongo edition (for the last decade). Oom Des was Southern Africa's Journalist of the Year for Sanlam's Competition for Community Press in 2000. He and his wife, Anneli, have for their teamwork in "Erongo", earned more than 60 awards for brilliant journalism through Misa, the ATKV and Sanlam.

Apart from journalism, Oom Des has written five short-story collections about Namibia and its people.

He said to this newspaper once that the most rewarding aspect of his job is to know and hear: "Job well done!" for a published article.

"I cannot sit around and do nothing. I must have a story, and if there's nothing, I feel I must find something to report on. This is what I live for. If a story happens, I'll leave everything and make sure I get the story," he said. "A story still excites me, and the next big story I would like to cover is just that next big story that comes up."

Thank you Oom Des, for a "job well done" in setting a high standard in Namibia's journalism world. You will be missed.