When I first started at Achilles I remember being nervous to meet members of Management, I quickly learnt I had no reason to feel that way, especially when it came to Andy, it didn’t take long before I found Andy’s calm presence in any meeting a reassuring one. In the early days I would come to Andy with big lists of things to do (which I am sure he looked forward to every time we met), he would agree something needed to be done and would tell me ‘we’ll sort it’. As my career evolved at Achiles I often looked to Andy for guidance and support, he had a great way of teaching.

Not long ago we went to Germany for an audit, it was a great opportunity to talk about more life than work, and I spent a lot of our trip laughing at Andy’s many a story and his dry sense of humour. On landing in Germany we headed to the train station, I am not great at flying, Andy took one look at me and said ‘you look green.. I am going to leave you here and go get a coffee’ I thought, oh wow how sympathetic, but he brought me back a bar of chocolate and all was forgiven. We sat down on the first night and Andy ordered a flight of beer, five different pints arrived on the table. I felt like a disapointment when I confessed I can’t stand beer. 

Andy was a well respected and well liked man, his loss feels huge to us all. My heart goes out to Jo and his family at this difficult time.