David was born in Croydon in July 1945 and grew up on the banks of the Thames in Barnes. He always described himself as a Surrey man. From an early age he began going to Craven Cottage to support FulhamFootball club, sometimes with his Uncle Stan but mostly with a group of boys from Thorne Street where he lived. They would catch the no 9 bus as far as Hammersmith Bridge and run through the back streets to reach the ground. In those less safety conscious days they would often be lifted over the barrier to watch from the very edge of the pitch. There he saw the likes of Johnny Haynes, Jimmy Hill and Tosh Chamberlain. Sometimes in the school holidays he and his friends would walk up to Harrods Sports Ground where the team often trained, and once David was briefly knocked out after attempting to head a ball. He was picked up by a concerned Bobby Robson.

David’s family had a strong work ethic and from the earliest possible age he had a paper round and then when in his early teens often worked as a delivery boy for the shop where his mother worked as a florist, toiling up to the top floors of the mansion flats in Kensington bearing enormous Christmas trees and bouquets.

On leaving school David commenced an engineering apprenticeship with J Lyons and Company. Lyons at that time were an enormous concern with interests in food manufacture, teashops, restaurants, West End hotels and many other businesses including an early computer company. They were the principal employers in West London and it was not unusual for whole families to work for them. David’s grandfather worked for them and later so did his mother as a florist at the Cumberland Hotel.

David received a very diverse training, initially in their factory at Abbey Road and later at Greenford, various hotels and latterly at Lyons Laboratories in Hammersmith Road. He played cricket and football for Lyons. He attended day release classes at Acton Technical College, where upon graduation he won the Wilkinson Sword prize for the outstanding student of the year. Whilst at the laboratory he designed various prototype machines including one which attempted to replicate the action of a set of jaws biting into a choc-ice, to test various types of chocolate coating.

In early 1966 David met Brenda for the first time. She also worked for Lyons as an accounts clerk, and her father worked with David. They met behind the goal at the Hammersmith end at Craven Cottage when David came up to say hello to her father. Some weeks later Brenda’s father fell ill with pneumonia, David came round to visit him and he and Brenda soon became an item, becoming engaged in September and marrying a year later.

Married life commenced in a small flat in Chiswick near Gunnersbury Station. They attended almost every production at the Richmond Theatre, where they could get seats in the gallery, enjoy an ice cream and buy chips on the way home and still get change from ten shillings.
The following year David secured a job at the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory in Chilton, Berkshire, and he and Brenda moved into a house in nearby Didcot. Sarah and Adam were born in the following two years. David’s work involved the meticulous setting up of nuclear physics experiments, followed by periods of downtime while the experiments were running. David enlivened these by blowing up rubber gloves with helium to a diameter of about six feet, painting them silver and releasing them. He and a French colleague visiting from CERN also built an Anglo-French kite of enormous size from welding rods and plastic sheeting which they would wind out on half a mile of cord until complaints from nearby RAF Abingdon brought the experiment to a premature halt.

Following the “winter of discontent” and numerous power cuts and strikes the family decided they needed a change of scene and in 1974 David went to work for Roan Consolidated Mines in Luanshya, Zambia. Thomas was born there just a few months after their arrival and their happiness was complete!


“Bwana Dave” as he was known, enjoyed the extra responsibilities that such a working environment entailed, becoming Assistant Foreman in the Concentrator and later Foreman in the Power Plant. He and some colleagues formed a pop group and he and Brenda also sang in a choir, the St George’s Singers, attached to the local Anglican Church. They were fortunate to enjoy holidays at Victoria Falls and South Luangwa National Park as well as stopovers in Mombasa.

After four years the economic and security situation began to deteriorate and the family decided to return to the UK. Having spent pleasant holidays in Norfolk whilst on leave they decided to try living there. Brenda imagined life on the Broads, but after renting a house in Hethersett they visited Wymondham Abbey one rainy afternoon and subsequently decided to look for a house in Wymondham. They moved to London Road in 1979. David worked initially as Engineering Supervisor for Barvis Structures but after the notorious Norfolk blizzard in February 1979 when the A11 was closed for three days he decided an indoor environment would suit him better so he returned to his roots in food and beverage manufacture by going to work for Norwich Brewery. He was eventually made redundant when the brewery closed, subsequently working for Camvac in Thetford, Colmans in Norwich, and finally for Kettle Foods.

The family were occasional attenders at the Abbey, but in 1983 Thomas was one of a group of boys from Browick Rd School invited to join the Abbey Choir and his parents started coming along to services to support him. David, along with a couple of other fathers, was soon “persuaded” by Denis Wright that he would like to join the choir and made his debut at Whitsuntide 1984. He probably didn’t dream at the time that he would remain a faithful chorister for over 27 years, and that together his family would clock up around sixty years between them as members of the Abbey Choir. He loved singing in the choir and as his bass colleagueRoy Headland said, “his forthright opinions meant that life was never dull”.

At the same time he and Brenda joined the newly-formed South Norfolk Amateur Operatic Society and together with fellow chorister David Eldridge appeared in many of their initial G & S productions, with a performance in “Princess Ida” in doublets and tights that according to one friend left little to the imagination.

Sadly David’s health began to deteriorate in the early 1990’s and he eventually had to give up work after being diagnosed with COPD. He still enjoyed DIY and woodwork projects at home when he felt well enough. He loved watching cricket and football, and enjoyed regulartrips to Nottingham, Lords and the Oval to watch Test Matches and see Surrey play. He still made occasional visits to Craven Cottage and was present on the memorable night when Fulham beat Juventus, and enjoyed the family road trip to the Europa Cup final in Hamburg. He also developed a keen interest in American Football and attended a number of games in San Francisco and San Diego following Thomas’s move to the USA. He and Brenda enjoyed a number of cruises to the West Indies, Norway, France and the Mediterranean and also holidays in Spain, Cyprus, Sweden, Denmark and Ireland. During the past eight years following the birth of his beloved granddaughters, Roxy and Lucy, he also made annual visits to Wyoming and California, where he loved the climate. Recurring chest infections entailed several hospital stays during 2015. He was always cheerful and upbeat in the face of illness, laughing and joking with the staff at the Medical Centre. His last holiday with Brenda, Sarah and sister in law Margaret was to Normandy in September.

David would be astonished at the many tributes paid to him by friends, family and colleagues over the past few weeks. Many of them simply said “He was such a lovely man”.