Al and I first started corresponding early in 1999. I mailed him as editor of R&D and asked him to forward my congratulations to Some Sort Of Dog on his excellent St Cats stories.
“He won't believe me,” he replied with a
“It's me...”
And so our friendship was born.
I knew Al for seven years and yet I’m still finding out new things about him even now. It turns out that he was almost every favourite author I’ve read. If I hear that Terry Pratchett passed away last Friday I should not be at all surprised.
It was Al who encouraged me to write my first piece for this community - an account of a photoshoot I had with Linsey Dawn McKenzie which Al hosted on R&D back in 2001.
I wrote it and Al then very politely told me what a hash I’d made of it and made me do it again! He was quite right, of course, and I learned a lot from the experience.
Al continued to encourage my fledgling writing. When I wrote my first Hilda Humper story he said it reminded him of something Joe Average might have wrote. I beamed with pride at that.
And it was Al who inducted me into Flying Rabbits - switching from amateur to professional photographer and from zero-rated to amateur sound engineer and spare cameraman.
Al always accused me of never listening to a word he said. That was half true. I wish I’d paid more attention to him when I had the chance. There is so much more I could have learned. But then I always thought I would have much longer with him...
It was through Flying Rabbits that I met so many wonderful people - models like Lorna Morgan, Michelle Monaghan & Leah Jayne, and behind the scenes Martin Solo, Mark, John, Faye and, of course, Al himself.
And it gave me an excuse to spend much more time with two models I already knew - Kerry Marie and the very special Lisa Anne.
Working with Al was never really work. Working with Al meant getting the job done but having enormous fun at the same time; and the memories I have of our trips to Amsterdam, Ibiza and Poitiers are amongst the happiest of my life.
What can you say about someone who has given you so much?
And perhaps it is only now that he’s gone that it is possible to grasp just how much he did give us - his fabulous stories, R&D, his contributions to this forum, his continued correspondence with so many of us and, when we created Flying Rabbits, he was adamant that it should contain a lot of free content (Much of it through yet another nom de plume - Everard Twinches).
The last time I saw Al was at Easter. Lisa Anne and I were in the neighbourhood so we arranged to meet him for dinner. It was a great evening and I am so grateful to have had that last opportunity to be with him.
And finally...
Al loved his cricket.
He’s now in that great cricket pavilion in the sky, dressed in his whites, having just come in from his turn to bat. There is a bowl of Marks & Spencers grapes on the table beside him, alongside what you thought was a cricket ball, but which is actually a dark Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
He’s watching as we continue to play the great game with the occasional nod or shake of his head.
And then he’d lean over, read what I just wrote and say. “What a load of sentimental old nonsense, Murphy!”
But he’d be smiling when he said it.
God bless you Al!