The eulogy.

Richard Lawrence Conway was born in 1953. In 1958 he saved my life. After I’d had a fit of ‘terrible two-ness’ our saintly mother hooked my walking ‘reins’ over a garden gate and walked away. Leaving me. Possibly to a life of post-Dickensian alms houses, to the fate of a Fagin, who knows? My brother came back and rescued me. An action he only occasionally regretted.

Richard was clever. Quiet, considered and clever. He could just do things. Anything he set his mind to. And the first was deciding to play guitar. He bought a cheap little acoustic 6-string. And a book. With the right book, there was absolutely nothing Rich couldn’t do. He learned the chords, threw away the book and without ever learning to read music, became an accomplished pub-band guitarist. He never wanted to be a ‘rock star’, Richard hid from the spotlights and the limelight. He just loved playing his Stratocaster.

But during the guitar learning phase, he discovered electronics. He bought a book. It was always a book. He learned about the then ‘new’ transistors. When everything got smaller. Radios, amplifiers, all got small. And Rich was 14 when he taught his physics teacher about solid state electronics. He built amps for his guitar, he built mixing tables for his band, and every Sunday morning came a procession of his guitar playing mates with some kind of minor dysfunction in their equipment which Rich would just fix. It was always Sunday morning because then they could stay and have bagels for lunch.

Somewhere during all this Richard received a degree in Pharmacy and started working at John, Bell and Croydon in Wigmore Street. And also, during that time, he met Diana. Neither of which events caused even a pause in his guitar playing or obsessive devotion to electronics. Richard had met his absolute ideal. A wonderful woman who allowed him to be himself. All the joys of true love whilst retaining full control of his soldering iron.

Then someone produced a computer. Long before the word ‘binary’ was hijacked by the wokes. This was life-changing for Rich. He bought a book. Built himself a computer and, with Diana by his side, his life was complete. He was not only an expert in programming and software, he could build you one too. And eventually all his other obsessions gave way to computing. Other than Diana, she remained his longest standing obsession.

Rich was funny. Always exceptionally dry, bitingly sarcastic and very witty. A fabulous uncle to his many nieces and nephews. And such an angelic man that he never even shouted at my wife Melissa during his long years of partnering her at our bridge table. I would have.

Since January, let’s just say ‘we’ve had some challenges’. I would say ‘he never complained’, but no-one who knew Rich would believe that. But it was always a pleasure seeing him every week. Playing proper ‘old’ music on his Alexa, sorting out geo-politics and re-living Mel Brooks films and 1960s tv shows.

We will all miss him terribly.

A xxxx