Just one example of David’s idiosyncratic approach to life.

David was my tutor in 1967. We were both new to Warwick. He looked after me well, as did Denise. Later I asked him for a reference for a scholarship in the USA in 1969 He agreed (even though I was not going to study maths!), but imposed conditions.

Either he wrote the reference and I promised never to ask him what he had said in it, or, I could write the reference and he would sign it.

I chose the former.

After his illness was first diagnosed he gave me a copy of what he had written all those years before. Believe me, I had made the right choice back in 69, but then David’s generosity was one of his many gifts.

On a different note.

I am sure that David would have enjoyed the string quartet, but the only time I ever saw music stop him in his tracks was when Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds boomed out of a window on campus, not exactly the sort of music I associated with him.

Bernard Kerrison