'if you're having a down day, just be more Richard.'
Richard was a real character. That’s what I would describe him as, what most people would describe him as. Full of life. He was just brilliant, loyal friend, work colleague. He was brilliant in other aspects of his life in terms of his sports and had a real lust for life. He lived it to the full. Huge traveller, travelled the world, real adventurer. Very interested in other people, always liked to find out about people wherever we went in the world. He was always inquisitive, interested in other cultures, and yeah, he was just an absolutely fantastic character, but then I would say that. He was the love of my life.
6 foot 3, well-built but trademark long blonde hair, blue eyes. He would like to think of himself as a typical surfer dude. He loved his snow sports, his skiing, snowboarding, but particularly his surfing, so that was his thing. Dickie Longboard. Because he did surf short boards, but he loved surfing long boards, and that was his forte, I suppose. Yeah, he just liked cruising along on a longboard, and that was his nickname.
So yeah, most people in the surfing fraternity and in the local area knew him as Dickie, whereas he had all sorts of different names. Because he lived in Australia, they called him Skippy at work, Skippy the bush kangaroo. And his friends from school called him Clarky, but also Toppin, because he had such blonde hair. It reminded people of Dream Toppin back in the 70s and 80s. So, he had Toppin, that was his nickname. And I used to call him Mr. C. And then later, as he got older and more hairy and beardy, he was called the Viking, so he was known as the Viking, particularly at the local bowling club. So, he was definitely a well-loved character and definitely interesting. He was quirky and once met, never forgotten. 
He was very good at his job and at work as well, very popular at work. He had loads of apprentices over the years. He was a joiner by trade, had loads of apprentices, a lot of whom he used to see later in life. So, when it came to his funeral, he had lots of different sections of people. A load of people from music as well, because we were massively into music, following bands and going to gigs all over the country and beyond into Europe. We used to travel to see bands and he knew people in bands.
We loved being outdoors. We’d like nothing better than roughing it in a tent. We liked the nicer things in life. We loved nice food and nice restaurants and all of that. But we could equally be just as happy with a little BBQ and a campfire. And he loved his fresh fish and we would go and cook something out in the wild. And that interest in music and the outdoors led us to go to a lot of festivals. I’d been to Glastonbury, oh God knows how many times before he came with us, but I did 18 in total and he did quite a few with me. And in 2015, we decided to get married in the Healing Fields at Glastonbury. So yeah, it was just, I suppose it combined our love of nature and the outdoors and spirituality and the music all combined. And also, that we wanted to, well, we weren’t really conventional, so we wanted to get married, but not in the most conventional way. So, it was perfect for us.
And I think if anything, his legacy should be that you should just grab life by both hands. And I mean, one of his friends always, well, used the analogy of burning the candle at both ends. And he said, Richard didn’t just do that, he just lit it and threw it on the fire, because that was just his way of embracing life. Like his fearless attitude to snowboarding down a black run or going into, I don’t know, 10 foot wave in the North Sea or, he would just, he just embraced life, lived it to the full. He was fearless.
I just hope other people can benefit from the story and take something from it. And if you’re having a down day, just be more Richard.
Louise Gulliver was interviewed in 2025 for the Trees of Hope Project.