| BGS
Newsletter Online |
| Richard Lynham |
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| - tribute to an (officer) and a gentleman In the seven years I have known Richard, he provided me with sound advice, gentle scolding and a sobering (in more ways than one!) influence. My scolding came hard on the heels of my appointment as Deputy Meetings Secretary, which plunged me into the maelstrom of BGS committee hierarchies and protocols. In my ignorance of the latter, and in my enthusiasm to improve office facilities when the office was bringing the Newsletter production in-house, I asked the Executive Committee for a zip drive to facilitate transfer of large print files between office and printer. The Executive’s response was bemused, but obliging. Richard, ever the guardian of proper form, wrote me a very long letter explaining that it was inappropriate to canvass the Executive Committee for office equipment, and while appreciating my achievement in securing substantial revenue for the Society I must not do this again! He concluded, with typical Richard-like wit, “everyone in the office is delighted with the zippy thing”. Over the years of my term as Deputy- and subsequently Meetings Secretary, Richard and I travelled near and far together, when he learned my likes and dislikes. Amongst the latter was my extreme fear of flying, particularly on small bird like planes. I well remember standing with knees knocking at Guernsey Airport, waiting for the return flight to Manchester. Not only had Richard avoided telling me that we had to touch down and take off again in Jersey en route, but he also omitted to mention that the plane had small deck chair like seats, and that this return journey was delayed as a result of the plane having been hit by lightning earlier in the day. Richard, with his usual gallantry and pragmatism kept me in ignorance of all these little details and plied me with alcohol to the point that I could barely remember the journey, and had problems finding my car on arrival at Manchester airport! Richard is cool, calm and unflappable, the ideal qualities to keep a Type A personality Meetings Secretary in order. During a Thursday lunchtime of the first Autumn Meeting I organised, a queue from hell began to form. The hotel, to improve efficiency, had switched all the escalators to “down”, thus depositing 400 hungry delegates who surged like the first day of the Harrods sales, towards the feeding point. The Novotel staff were overwhelmed and I was irate enough to spit. In the ensuing melee, Professor Graham Mulley had been inadvertently deposited on the lower ground amongst the hungry hordes, when he should have been on the third floor at the Association of Professors meeting. I had tried to encourage him back up the escalators, unaware that they were all coming down. Richard, however, with typical unflappability, re-routed Graham out of the hotel onto the roadside to do a right, right and back into the hotel where he could find an escalator heading in the right direction. Later that day Richard saved the life of the catering manager as Cecilia Ingram and I vented our displeasure. Richard was fun to work with, a true professional, unflappable, unstoppable and unfailingly gallant. He gently guided myself and many others through the power-labyrinths of the BGS, allowing us to make mistakes but always ensuring damage limitation. I will miss him, as will many others. In particular, we shall miss the wit popping into our email boxes on an almost daily basis. His emails were always precise in listing his requirements, grateful for help, and invariably humorous. I thank him for his help, for his friendship and for all that he has done for the Society. Margot
Gosney Farewell
Richard Richard’s departure after 13 years of extremely loyal service as Administrative Director of the British Geriatrics Society will be a major shock to the system. In many ways Richard has personified the Society and certainly for those of us who have been officers, his wisdom and quiet assertiveness has been absolutely essential for what has been a golden period for the Society. Richard was appointed when I was Deputy Treasurer of the Society, during a time when the finances and the structure of the Society were extremely fragile. While constructing the job description for Richard’s successor, the enormous changes that he has facilitated became very obvious. The Society now owns its own premises, has a turnover of more than a million pounds per year and has an expanding membership, a financially successful journal, an excellent newsletter and two first class meetings a year. Without Richard’s managerial acumen, it is doubtful that this would have been possible. Putting aside the more easily accountable achievements, I think it is Richard’s personal qualities and contribution that we will all remember. His quiet and unintrusive corrections or reminders have been the saviour of many an officer! He has quietly steered the bi-annual meetings where he has become very well known to a large number of members who have been able to appreciate his wry sense of humour. Richard has given the Society tremendous service and he has always shown a major concern and sympathy with the Society’s objectives, pursuing them with unflinching integrity. Although Richard is retiring early because of health problems, the strong bonds that he has formed with the Society and the friendships that have developed will certainly not weaken, and he will always be a welcome guest at all our functions. Jeremy
Playfer Richard - mediator, linguist, artist...and sheepdog! Richard has seen many presidents, secretaries, executive and council members come and go during his 13 years’ service to the Society, having attended all the Scientific Meetings and most committee meetings. Those who worked closely with him will know of his patience and skill in assisting the Society and its officers in achieving its aims. He always tried to ensure that issues debated at meetings came to a definite conclusion, but there were occasions when we must have tried his patience as we discussed matters, going round and round in circles before ‘kicking the matter to touch’ or ‘sitting on the fence’. I understand that Richard proclaimed that he sometimes felt like a sheepdog, trying to round up the sometimes disparate directions taken by the Society’s different officers. For those
who know Richard, he is a quiet, courteous, extremely industrious and
conscientious man, with a delightful sense of humour and a talent for
bringing a pithy phrase to sum up a situation. He kept an eagle eye on
everything to do with the Society, and I just don’t know how he
managed to cope with the BGS while still being a very effective and active
local J.P. He is a man of many talents, being a talented painter and linguist.
Some time after my term of office, the Society was asked to do a guest
presentation on the history and trends in British geriatric medicine.
With his usual flair, Richard took on board the fact that most serving
officers were either too busy, or not proficient in German. He produced
a superb presentation and delivered it in his excellent Swiss German.
Cologne was so impressed, they asked for an English translation of the
presentation material for future use! Richard’s sense of humour and wit came to the fore on several occasions. It is the custom for Presidents to have a portrait photograph added to the BGS Presidents’ Gallery. Richard was totally unimpressed with the attempts of the first photographer who photographed me. He had placed me in an armchair with a sloping back. The result, in Richard’s view, was to make me look as if I had had a “liquid lunch”, which was definitely not the case! The next attempt was much better. On behalf of the Presidents and other officers who have had the privilege of working with Richard, I can say that he will be greatly missed. I hope that his health improves so that he can enjoy his retirement. Michael
Denham When I joined the staff of the BGS in 1992, a newly arrived immigrant from the “colonies”, Richard did little to dispel my image of the quintessential Englishman, derived from a diet of Victorian literature. Dapper in appearance and movement, Richard speaks with the precise, rounded vowels that my elocution teacher had tried so hard, and in vain, to instil in myself and my “colonial” school peers. Richard’s manners can be described as almost courtly and he displays the fair minded impartiality and loyalty for which the English stereotype, whether justifiably or not, is so famed. For many years, Richard was not only my manager, but an well-read and tempering sounding board for my more extreme views on society, politics and the universe in general. He used to entertain the office with tales of some of the legal issues confronting him in court, where he serves as a justice of the peace. While I was (still am!) of the opinion that they should reinstate hanging for burglary and parking offences, I continuously marvelled at Richard’s unfailingly measured, sane approach to people whom I, in his position, would cheerfully have consigned to the stocks for a well-deserved flogging! Apart from the abiding image of Richard, the urbane, if ever so slightly eccentric “Englishman”, striding along wearing trilby and carrying the ubiquitous umbrella, the contrasting memory I will have, is Richard, kitted out in industrial blue overalls, marigold gloves and wellington boots, armed with a brush and dustpan, heading into the external basement stairwell of Marjory Warren House, to clean up the various bits of toxic smelling waste discarded by passers by. The Administrative Director of the BGS had no qualms about tackling anything, whether it was bringing structure to some cunning plan of national import, washing crockery, or sweeping the pavement of Marjory Warren House. One of my fondest memories, however, is of the intriguing relationship between Richard and his computer. Never afraid of change, Richard abandoned the notion of having a secretary to type his correspondence, and despite his deeply felt suspicion of electronics, he “embraced” computers and email technology from 1998. His attitude towards computers in general, and his own in particular, remains ambivalent. As testimony to the mutual love-hate relationship between them, Richard named his computer “Jezebel”, and Jezebel obliged by inexplicably losing toolbars, putting lines in where none were required, and generally behaving with all the whimsical treachery of her biblical namesake. On numerous occasions, one of the staff would be called up to Richard’s workstation to sort out whatever baffling and entirely “unprovoked” bit of deliquency Jezebel was displaying on a given day. At the same time, Richard was prolific in his use of email, tut-tutting crossly if somebody with whom he wished to communicate, was so Luddite as not to have an email address. Jezebel remains in the BGS office, but I’m sure Jezebel Mark II (Richard’s home computer) will continue to serve and frustrate him for years to come. Hamba gahle, Richard. We are all variously indebted to you and the BGS office’s best wishes go with you in this new chapter of your life. Recia
Atkins
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