Possible Clues:

• In the company of the dried bits of reed
• Having lost all moisture, vegetation, say
• In 'er company the editor has dried up
• In the company of the bits of dry deer
• Shriveled up
• Humour and energy in group declined
• Sounds as if the old cockney woman has not been decapitated
• Died in the company of a broken reed
• Willow shoot a bright colour, like Keats's sedge?
• Humour (present-day) has dried up