From his earliest years, Steve’s life was bound up with flight and space exploration. As an adult, his work as director of programme management with a multi-national aerospace company flew him to all parts of the globe. In his travels he was able to meet and talk with distinguished American astronauts whose experiences and wisdom he greatly appreciated. He campaigned to his very last days to prolong the operational existence of Concorde, the aeronautical love of his life, and took every opportunity for flight in that wonderful plane.
Steve was a one-off, an original and unconventional man of ideas. We should let his friends and colleagues define him:
- “A steady friend, of sharp intelligence and caustic wit, but a softie at heart.”
- “A phenomenal intellect, with a clarity of vision and weight of argument....”
- "...throughout the world recognised and respected for his skill and dedication to aerospace programmes….”
- “So impressed by what he had achieved in his life, and always entertained by his presence....”
- “His brilliance was at times astonishing....”
- “His ability to put together a ‘cunning plan’ in the direst of circumstances was unique. I will treasure forever the friendship that we had.”
Aerospace apart, his passions were classical music and cricket. He once said that a supreme moment of sublime happiness occurred during a performance of the works of Wagner at the Bayreuth Festival. He would have been ecstatic about England’s Ashes victory.
His family try to take comfort in the thought that this extraordinary man packed more life into his 46 years than most of us manage in our threescore and ten. Now he has “slipped the surly bonds of earth” and we are left with only the blazing trail that is his wake.
