An oratory expounder of all things West Country

By Frank O'Connor

Originally published by Time Extension

Almost exactly a year ago, I ended up chatting with Andy on Facebook – in fact I helped him fix (I think) a Commodore 64 – something with a 6502 processor anyway – but we talked about the good old days and the all-to-predictable struggles Andy was enduring at the time. We shared anecdotes, advice, even medication tips and we caught up. I recognized many of the trials he was facing – and he, like me was all too aware of the ripples he was casting on his local pond.

Andy was a wonderful communicator – a brilliant writer, a genuinely, organically funny and engaging conversationalist and an oratory expounder of all things West Country. When I moved to Bath, with my own funny accent and pale blue Scottish skin, he was one of several amazing friends who welcomed me, embraced me as kin and ended up being a beloved roommate and colleague.

If you knew him though, you’d know that he could be funny without saying a word. He could simply gaze back at you with an expression of puckishly mirthful judgment – a faerie’s delight in the foolishness of us mere mortals. He could simultaneously judge the profundity of your stupidity while gurning his features into a grin that loudly pronounced he too was a core collaborator in whatever the idiocy was.

Adventures to motorway cafes in the dead of night, long sunny cider afternoons in the garden by the aqueduct — and endless, happy and infectious joy. I knew him when we were young, when we were our own platonic ideals – and so he’s forever paused there in my memory and always will be. A beacon of bright laughter on the best stretch of road I ever traveled.

I don’t know if he ever fixed the computer, because computers are tricky – subject to bugs, to wear and tear and to the silly things we install on them, but we did diagnose it correctly, and made it a little better and all with help from our friends.