Like everyone I am just thinking about Richard and find it very difficult to believe what has happened because he has always been such a survivor. He is a real character. Of course for me wherever there has been Richard there has been Jean and we have had genuinely good times. Pleasant seems a rather bland word but that is how the time we spent together was, either the three of us or meals with Steph, Del, Roger and Mary. The atmosphere was always relaxed and Richard was somehow always at top of table making cracks that we would groan at but there was never a hint of malice or unkindness - just banter that we all 'got'. My brief stay in Spain with you a couple of years ago was great and full of incident, bringing into being the not to be forgotten 'two old slappers' phone call. Richard was indeed well and truly lumbered but when we went to Lynda's he, Geoff and Roger seemed to be 'liberated'. The police incident was also memorable and we have had many a laugh talking about it since. When I look back I find that every incident turned out to be the something we could have a laugh about and take pleasure in - I remember for example our 35 minute dash for the plane - one of the hairiest drives I can remember that looked for a long time as though it was going to be a disaster - in fact to this day I don't know how we made it - but when we got there with 30 seconds to spare Richard coolly walked past all the passengers queuing to get on the plane and we were among the first to board and somehow we seemed almost relaxed. I am so glad you asked me on that trip because I have real good memories of it. I remember Richard's long white gown he had some funny name for and the leather get-up. Always something unexpected. He enjoyed gabbling on to me in Arabic just to annoy me, always with a twinkle once I moaned at him. But to me he was never anything but kind and the way you talk about the way he was in hospital - his lack of complaint, his gratitude and his continued optimism are so typical of his essence. I will miss him greatly. The world will now be a duller and less kind place.