Death of Malcolm Kennedy - from Rupert Talbot

Malcolm Kennedy died on Saturday at his care home in Faro, Portugal. He was 93 and had been ailing for some time after a series of falls. Jenny, his wife, died of cancer some years ago, Malcolm providing her with end of life care which took its toll, as he freely shared. Their three children, Alistair, Duncan and Fiona all live in the UK. They will let me know in due course what arrangements are being made for his funeral. It is likely to be a small family affair.

I was in regular touch with Malcom until October last year when he was still lucid and clear with remarkable recall of people, places and events. His great sense of the comical in life and extraordinarily detailed recounting of his time with Unicef in India, Somalia and Nepal followed by a short spell at NYHQ (before taking early retirement in a bit of a huff), stay with me, especially the arguments over technology choice in the early stages of the India water programme and, with much hilarity and some residual annoyance, some nefarious episodes and dastardly deeds of certain 'colleagues'.

Lest we forget, it was Malcolm who started the India water programme under Gordon Carter in 1969 and who, with obstinate persistence, purchased down the hole hammer drill rigs for the hard crystalline rocks of southern peninsular India rather than conventional cable percussion and top hammer rigs as strenuously pushed by Ed Bridgewater and his Supply Division team at NYHQ, encouraged as they were by certain, ahem, others. All of that for another time. Suffice to say, MRK was vindicated though I think his ruffling of NYHQ feathers was not forgotten...

RIP MRK

Best of the best
Rupert