A cultured correspondent with an everyday human touch

Before coming to Canberra, Cole-Adams spent almost three decades at The Age, where he held senior posts as a foreign bureau chief in both Europe and the US, a columnist and feature writer and an associate editor.

In his writing, he was scrupulously fair and delivered his astute observations with wit and acuity. Socially, he was a great raconteur and found humour in most things.

Cole-Adams joined The Age in 1965 under Graham Perkin, the distinguished editor accredited with turning the paper around by hiring the country's best writers, influencing government agendas and providing authoritative analysis and reporting.

''Peter always had an air of nascent authority and experience about him. He was a cultured man and made a big contribution to the paper that Perkin envisaged,'' former colleague Cameron Forbes said.

''He possessed style, wit and substance as a correspondent, but also as an executive. He was a thinker, which not all executives are. He was always good with people.''

He was born in Kuching but grew up in Stanthorpe, Queensland, after originally arriving in Australia with his mother in Perth. His father had been serving as a British administrator in Borneo, but mother and an infant Cole-Adams were evacuated under gunfire as Japanese forces moved in.

After 28 years at The Age, Cole-Adams moved to Canberra where he became political editor of The Canberra Times under the editorship of former Age colleague Michelle Grattan.

Late in his career, Cole-Adams and his wife, artist Brigid Cole-Adams, spent seven months travelling around Australia.

At the end of their trip they produced the book Journey into Australia, featuring many of his observations and a collection of her illustrations.

Cole-Adams once described the project as ''the assignment of a lifetime''.

He is survived by three daughters, Kate, Sarah and Jennet, and seven grandchildren.