We had the pleasure of meeting David as recently as 2018, but we were grieved by this terrible news. Untimely. During the very short time that we were lucky enough to work in his shadow, he wittily shared with us his love of motorcycling in Scotland and Outer Mongolia (until ‘the bike’ was stolen), the ballet and of course his beloved Suffolk Punch! He was, I think, a genuinely modest person, when really his great gifts, which he carried very lightly, could easily have led to conceit. That he touched our hearts so deeply having known him for such a short while is probably the measure of him. A day or two before the terrible news arrived, I had read this from Van Dyke: ‘A ship spreads white sails into the morning breeze. I stand and watch until she hangs as a speck between sea and sky – and someone says: ‘There. She is gone.’ And at that moment, as someone at my side says, ‘She is gone,’ there are other eyes watching for her arrival – and glad voices are raised to shout: ‘Here she comes. There she is!’ I rather suspect that in David’s case there will also be loud shout of ‘Blue Army!’ Our sincerest condolences to his family, Charles Ingmire