The following obituary was written by Tony Lindesay, Richard's cousin

Richard was born in Changi Singapore where his father was in The Royal Artillery. He spent many of his early years in the Orkneys where his father was posted next and had many happy childhood memories of clambering over crashed aeroplanes with his brother, James and especially seeing Spitfires flying overhead.  

At 8 he went to prep school at Western Super Mare where he proved to be an able student, so much so that he was awarded an academic scholarship to Tonbridge School in Kent.  I have a cutting from one of his last school reports that he kept in a frame in his study. It reads;

“His work is still undistinguished. If all members of his form were doing the same work, I should expect him to come seventh or eighth. Last December Christ’s Cambridge put him at about 10% below entry standard. I hope that he is now much better. He will, however, not have much reason for self satisfaction if he is not better than exhibition standard; nor will Cambridge do him much good if he continues to regard work as an unwarranted intrusion into his spare time”.

Having said that he was awarded a scholarship to read Ancient Greek at Christ’s Cambridge and he always referred to his educational years as his happiest times

From Cambridge he joined the army as part of his national service and seeing that he had read Greek at University, the army, in all their wisdom, decided that the obvious thing was to send him to Cyprus as a Greek translator. To his alarm and to the army’s dismay he discovered that the Greek that he had mastered at Cambridge bore little resemblance to the modern Greek that was spoken in Cyprus. He had to go back to school to learn the modern version.

When he left the army, he went out to Malaysia to become a manager with Harrison and Crossfield, a plantation company who produced rubber, palm oil and cocoa.  The Role demanded that he travelled extensively in Asia and Australasia and he spent a lot of time in the jungle collecting data and checking that jobs were carried out correctly and targets were hit. I came across a senior manager who Richard had given his first job to and he was telling me that nobody could quite understand why a man who was so obviously cultured wanted to do the job he was doing in the jungle. Apparently, he was always flitting off to see visiting opera performances or ballets. He kept up with his Malaysian cohorts right to the end of his life.

Richard was always up for a party, be it with family or friends, and he spoke of dinners and reunions with school and university peers with whom he had spent such happy times, all of which were very important to him.  

His great loves were the ballet, the opera, playing tennis and gardening, and he was very proud of his collection of many different types of geranium which filled his flat with a lovely scent.

He was an interesting and inventive cook, usually cooking from scratch, often having an oxtail in the slow cooker or his speciality, a rabbit pie made for special guests, served cold and set in a jelly. He usually made this for my mum who, quite frankly, struggled with it!  Each year at Christmas he was in charge of the brandy butter, which was certainly more brandy than butter!!

Richard never married or had children, but his family of cousins were very important to him and he never missed an opportunity to be with them, He even drove all the way to Wales and back for Christmas this year, just four weeks before he died.

Richard had an extensive circle of friends and enjoyed his weekly lunches with mates from the tennis club.  His neighbours were amazing in their support for him right up until the end, for which we are and always will be very grateful.

He will be missed by us all and I think he will be sad to have gone so soon but he lived his life well.

(PH 49-54)