Simon Fletcher was the kindest, most loyal friend anyone could ever hope for.  And great fun too!

He loved music.  Correction, he loved all kinds of music, which meant our “little outings” could involve anything from a Saturday morning recital on the Wurlitzer organ at the Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square to watching (fake) blood being cleaned off the walls at the start of a production of Elektra at Covent Garden.  He always delighted in learning something new and unusual about music.  At a Proms concert, he roared laughing on discovering an unlikely collaboration between the avant-garde composer, George Antheil and the Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (in 1941 they were jointly granted a patent for a frequency hopping, radio-guided torpedo – the basic technology is used in Wi-Fi connections today).  Simon never failed to amaze me with his broad and in-depth knowledge of music (and come to think of it, on practically everything else too). I don’t think I could ever match this but would happily content myself with being his life-long “work-in-progress”!

Deborah Jones studied Performing Arts at Middlesex University where she discovered legwarmers and began a love affair with the music of Maurice Ravel.  Deborah subsequently worked as an arts administrator at ENO, IMG Artists, Lontano and for both Sir Georg Solti and Michael Kamen.