Missing You - Malcolm Kennedy. Sad news shared by Rupert Talbot

Malcolm Kennedy, 1933 - 2026

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 on him, as he freely shared. Their three children, Alistair, Duncan and Fiona all live in the UK. They will let us know in due course what arrangements are being made for his funeral. Malcolm avoided ceremony, so 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, stay with me, especially his arguments over technology choice in the early stages of the India water programme and, with much hilarity and some residual irritation, his telling of the more nefarious episodes that occured and the cast of characters he encountered in his Unicef career.

Malcolm Kennedy was Unicef's first Water Chief (sanitaion came later). In 1968, he was recruited by Gordon Carter, Regional Director, ROSA, to set up and manage Unicef support to India's nascent drinking water programnme for which specialised drilling equipment was to be purchased. His dogged and successful insistance on the procurement of super-fast down the hole hammer drill rigs for the hard crystalline rock formations of southern peninsular India rather than the conventional and slow cable percussion and top hammer rigs, as strenuously pushed by NYHQ, and the battles that ensued between them, was critical to the direction of travel for India's 'indigenisation' of drilling equipment. But all of that for another time. Suffice to say, Malcolm was vindicated in his choice of technology as evidenced today by the expansion of India's rural water supply programme, rapid development of its now all-powerful manufacturing base, self sufficiency in drillling equipment and export market. Some legacy !

RIP MRK

Malcolm Kennedy, 1933 - 2026