Unfortunately, I come late to the very sad news about Nick . I thought i would add a few words about Nick's days in Newcastle .

My first memory of Nick was the first morning of our Planning Course . There was Nick at the head of the table , text books alongside , sitting next to our course tutor . I thought he was a staff member ! 

Any way it turned out that he had just graduated from Cambridge but , and I have no idea if this is true or not , he had been unable to sit his final exams due to a sporting injury . Earlier posts suggest that this was not possible but Nick explained that he had incapacitated himself playing table football ( no doubt with a few pints to hand ) . 

We were a small postgraduate group of 10 , togther for 2 years in a studio evironment  so we became a faily tight knight group with Nck at our centre .

There are so many Nick stories I could relate . These include regular court bulletins about the health of the split ends of one of our fellow students during lectures on arcane topics suchas the goals achievement matrix . Nick's response  "There is no goal like an own goal ".

Or, later on in the course , and after amid term break appearing with a door knob; "somehting I picked up in South Ken " The door Knob was paced alongsde Nick during our lectures.

Our law lecturer incurred Nicks' Wrath by trying to sell his course notes . Nicks response was to obtain a packard from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle to which he added the headline " Don't buy xxxx's notes " and placed the placard at the front of the lecture room to greet the said lecturer . 

We now come to Nicks dissertation.

He awlays said he wanted to research "The role of drink in property development " a topic on which he might have been very well qualified to undertake .

Sadly for posterity this did not materialise . No doubt humankind is much the poorer as a result .

Instead he researched something to do with leisure . Ever enterprising , he managed to obtain sponsorship for this project and employed us, his fellow students ,to undertake the survey work. Thiis worked well until the Oral part of the final exam . 

"Mr Waloff", asked the external examiner , "what happened to your appendix ?" 

Answer from Nick; "I sold it ".

Perhaps that was enough for the lecturing staff and Nick was required to re submit a year later during which time he worked for te South Tyneside Housing Department '. He never did work in Planning but applied his ample tallents and flair for entrepreneurship to the many other activites he undertook in later life .

Nick was great fun and always thinking way ahead of the rest of us . He always had great talent and flair . 

His passing  is a real loss and the world is much poorer as a result .

Phil Crabtree