MESSAGE FROM GILLIAN NEWMAN

Please could you put this message on your blog to thank the many people who have called, visited, sent messages and flowers to express sympathy and love on the sudden death of Richard - and for acts of kindness too numerous to mention.

All the family appreciate the thoughtfulness and know that Richard, a modest man, would have been overwhelmed and astonished to know people held him in such high esteem. His broad interests meant that he had friends from all walks of life, but his love of family first, then literature, were combined at the funeral service by the poetry that interwove the ceremony. Anna and Tess, his daughters, chose Ursula Bethell's poem Pause from Big Sky - A Collection of Canterbury Poems. Richard would have been so proud.

I would like to correct a misinterpretation in the otherwise wonderful obituary in Saturday's Press. I am quoted as saying that Richard felt he had come home when he was in London. This is wrong. He was a New Zealander through and through, tracing his roots to Ireland. He loved London, and visiting the literary sites of his readings, and leaping on and off the Tube like the Monopoly Board, but his home was here. His heartlands were Great Barrier Island, Waiheke Island, Mount Eden and Canterbury.
The Press also incorrectly spelt Tessa's name as Teresa. Richard lives on in his children, his grandchildren and his work.