I have an image of Simon, striding down the path that led from Lafrowda (the Exeter University on-campus student flats) towards the main campus.  As we approach each other he greets me with ‘Neil, old chap, well met!’ followed by a loud laugh and a hearty handshake.

I met Simon through John Davis, with whom he shared a room at Hope Hall.  That must have been in the autumn of 1975, our first year at Exeter.  Simon was studying politics (ending up with a first class degree) and I did some of the same papers as he did.

After Exeter, though no longer so proximate to each other day to day, we became closer friends.  Another image – it is now 1980 or something like that:  Simon at a barn-dance (very much the in thing in those days), right in the middle of it all, absolutely guffawing at the mess being made of the dance by us all.  I think he was very fond of simple physical humour.  By this time Simon was looking for somewhere to live in London, and by chance, my parents’ next door neighbour knew of a place – the Friends International Centre.

It was at this location (opposite Dillons bookshop and right next to the University Church of Christ the King) that the (in)famous demolition of the toilet took place.  “Chaps” quoth Simon (addressing me and another close friend, Martyn Evans, and keeping his voice conspiratorially low) “I’ve completely destroyed it” before leading us to the scene of lavatorial devastation.  This would have been in the mid-eighties I think.  Around that time, he moved to his own place in Finchley, and also around this time he became the most generous landlord to me – as I lodged with him for a year or more (1985-86).  He was working at MAFF.  When I moved to the Friends International Centre myself, Simon and I would meet sometimes for lunch in the Covent Garden area.

I seem to remember that he met Suang-Eng while he was still in Finchley, and I think I met her too – not knowing in those early days how she would change his life.  In 1989, I left London and ended up in New Zealand via a spell in Swansea.  And inevitably the threads of our lives crossed less frequently after that.  Emails, his wryly self-deprecating family newsletters, his kindness when my mum died.

A gentleman, a scholar, a lover of words (“marvellous” a favourite), with a merry eye for absurdity, a man of principle, faith and generosity.  Goodbye, old chap.