I have known Simon for almost 30 years since he joined a strange group which included professors, researchers, policy analysts, statisticians and scary administrators!

I would like to offer these recollections and personal thoughts as a tribute to him and I hope that through these, we can all catch glimpses of the person Simon was and reflect on how richer our lives were for having known him.

Simon joined the Policy Research Institute (at what was LMU) in the mid-1990s as a Research Fellow in labour markets / economic policy. My first recollections of him was of a positive happy man with quite a cheeky smile! But as I got to know him over the years, I realised there was much depth to him – he was a great judge of character, didn’t suffer fools gladly and took great pride in helping those around him to develop their own careers.

Although his time at the PRI started over 25 years ago, it’s great testimony to Simon that so many of his ex-colleagues have expressed their great sadness at his sudden passing and are here today. I know this means a lot to Sarah and so on her behalf I want to thank our ex PRI colleagues for being here. … The PRI meant such a lot because to quote Sarah “they were special times!”. … And that’s because the PRI was where it began for Simon and Sarah. In fact Simon and Sarah saw the same advert for jobs at the PRI in The Guardian and applied at the same time. Who knew that that separate but simultaneous act would result in their lives being joined together?

Sarah was our library and information assistant – helping with literature searches, ordering books and articles and curating our typically large research repository! I don’t know when or how it happened between Simon and Sarah but it was not a place where secrets could be kept (remember those scary administrators!) so it wasn’t long before a wedding was being talked about and planned.

Despite the wedding taking place over 200 miles away from Leeds. I recall with great joy driving a mini-bus with a dozen colleagues on our road trip to Kent for the weekend to help celebrate with Simon and Sarah on their special day.

Simon quickly became indispensable at the PRI and was key to our service delivering a Regional Economic Advice Unit - a hot line where contacts in Training and Enterprise Councils and Leeds City Council could ring up and ask us anything to do with regional economic policy. I remember one summer afternoon discussing with Simon who were our favourite callers and whose names caused raised eyebrows (or the odd expletive) when Andrea (a scary administrator) announced “Andy Gubbins is on the line again!”

Then the bombshell hit. I had been promoted to the General Manager role and our director had gone on a three months visit to Japan leaving me to “hold the fort”. After just a few days Simon came to see me and said he had been offered another job – I knew his work with us was not yet done and that he couldn’t be allowed to leave so I wasted no time in heading off to see the finance director of the faculty where we were based in to tell him of Simon’s importance and how we couldn’t afford to lose him, especially with our Director away. That day, Simon became a Senior Policy Analyst and his future with PRI was secured.

Occasionally Simon could be described as being ahead of the times…. One such time I recall was when he told me that in July he would watch Chanel 4’s full coverage of the tour de france cycling race – this was well before Cycling in Yorkshire became cool! – But Simon knew what he liked and he definitely liked cycling!

He failed to be excited by premier league football but he was hooked on Channel 4’s coverage of Italian football (which was very big in the 1990s after Sky took all the live TV coverage) We had a robust exchange of views – I think I said something like boring, negative and full of posers – describing Sieri A and he said something like “hoofball, thuggish and feral” describing the British game – or was that just Leeds United – like I said he didn’t suffer fools and he was definitely ahead of his time.

Simon took great pride in supporting his colleagues. He was that sort of person who wanted everyone to be the best they could be. He developed a really special relationship with Fiona a young research officer he took under his wing and it was no surprise to any of us that in time, Fiona also became a senior policy analyst in Labour Markets. I too have much to be grateful to Simon for. In 1999, our director took a year’s sabbatical and the position of Acting Director opened up. Simon made no delay in coming to me and telling me he thought I should apply. He could see things in people that others did not and those gentle but direct affirming words were often enough. It persuaded me to go for it and those words definitely helped me to have the career I have enjoyed since.

Simon left the PRI as the new century came in at the same time as a new organisation was born Yorkshire Forward (quite an irony for this proudly Lancastrian man!) but our paths continued to cross.

I last met Simon in November. He told me he was looking forward to a new role working a couple of days a week forging better links between Leeds City Council and the Universities in Leeds working on research and evidence based policy making. Sadly that is something that we won’t now be doing together but in Simon’s honour, I pledge to deliver that closer working relationship and make it as good as it can be as a lasting legacy to a great man and colleague.

Thank you Simon, Rest in Peace.