I first met Tony in 1995 shortly after I first moved to Brighton. It was a chance meeting on the beach near Marocco's, which blossomed into a friendship that lasted nearly 3 decades. I could never quite believe Tony was an accountant. He was an inveterate hippie with scruffy hair and I seem to recall he still possessed an Afghan coat - one of the smelliest items of clothing within living memory, although to be fair he had it cured.
Tony was a veteran of the Afghanistan Hippie trail in the days when it was one of the most enlightened Eastern countries. Tony spoke fondly of the generosity and kindness of the Afghan people recalling a specific occasion he was taken in and fed by strangers after he'd missed a bus.
His love of the music of the 1960's sustained him through his life. Jimi Hendrix was always the biggest go to, but I remember his fondness for The Beatles, Michael Chapman, Jefferson Airplane, Velvet Underground and Neil Young who we eventually got to see play with Crazy Horse in Hyde Park in 2014. But he was always looking for new music to sustain him and would revel in new gems that had sparked his imagination.
We sustained our friendship through '97 and '99, when I went back to live in London and Tony visited several times. We went to some iconic gigs like Siousxie Sioux at Brixton Academy and I recall he loved a film installation of a car driving relentlessly into a barrier to the point of total destruction made by an artist friend of mine. It was screened in an artist takeover in a derelict factory space near Kings Cross. Tony's tastes in art and in music were very considered but it was a mark of his friendship that he'd support his mates creative efforts and he came to see me perform once or twice with the Survivors' Poetry group that was a big part of my life through the 90's. Although poetry and song lyrics weren't his thing necessarily, Tony did have a love of word play. He was a great one for bad puns (or good puns depending on your viewpoint. He loved the stories about my dad Frank's eccentric behaviour - especially when he buried a mattress in my sister's garden. Most would look at me askance when I relayed this story but not Tony. Quick as a flash his response was "Did you not tell your dad, we wanted bedding plants, not planting beds!"
Tony loved the simplicity of the Haiku and did occasionally set himself to writing some of his thoughts down using that form. I remember him talking about his grandads "wiflicute." He was impressed by his grandads aptitude to be creative and wittle small sculptures in wood despite his blindness and deafness - and wiflicute was a made up word for the objects he made.
Although Tony was never a dancer, he had a passion for the Dance Music that swept the country in the late 90's. It melded his love of music and technology. We used to love the all-day Sunday extravaganzas in the ramshackle old Concorde - a regular hippie-fest of epic DIY proportions that happened in a building next to the Sealife centre that was demolished in the early 2000s.
His love of creativity led him to do a course in music tech at Northbrook College. He revelled in creating animated film to sync with his techno creations and had several outings in various music pubs as well as supporting his friend Ollie's band producing the gigs for some infamous performances. Tone also supported sound production for many friends including Bernadette Cremin's incredible monologue performance Altered Egos.
I'll remember Tony for his extraordinary kindness and his incredible resilience. When Liz and my daughter Amber came into the world in 2003 we decided to go live with her parents in Birmingham for a while. Without prompting Tony offered to hire an estate car and drive the three of us with our things up to Birmingham. He came with us to WOMAD festival in Wiltshire, the year after he suffered a stroke. His dedication to training himself to speak again and to revive motor skills was incredible. He loved old fairground rides and I remember specifically the test he set himself to go on a beautiful vintage helter skelter. He'd lost spacial awareness down the left side of his body and described the ride as absolutely terrifying. Yet he was elated at having pressed himself to conquer his fear.
Tony could be extraordinarily generous and loved to create an atmosphere of anticipation for his friends. There was an occasion in 2011 when he told Liz and myself to keep a night free because he had a surprise in store. He wouldn't tell us a thing as he invited us out to dinner and then on to Brighton Dome for one of the best concerts of our lives: The Fleet Foxes around the time of the release of Helplessness Blues.
Tony struggled hard to stay alive in the last five years and was made especially vulnerable by the covid pandemic. A throat cancer involved taking out his saliva glands which lead to his having to be fed by a machine from 2018. He never gave up, which was a mark of his extraordinary irrepressible personality.
Tony was a proud and caring individual with a powerful intellect and will be missed by so many of us for his love, humour and thought-provoking intelligence. It was such a tragedy that hardly anyone got to see him in the last 5 years of his life. Aware of his vulnerability when the pandemic hit he became hyper-cautious of contact with anyone. There were many of his friends who persisted in trying to make contact with him who were put off over and again … such was his nature he was convinced that that the tide would turn and he’d get better.
Tony we miss you … even your bad jokes! “A neutron walks into a bar and asks the bartender: how much for a drink?” to which the bartender replied “For you, no charge.”
Remembering you with love and warmth
Colin