Sue & I were so saddened to hear of Phil’s passing, just days before meeting him & Eileen at their home in Exmouth on our way home after a visit to Cornwall, but this was not to be.

We were fortunate to visit them there two months previously, and had a great dinner with them at a restaurant by the harbour where Eileen had secured the best table overlooking the slipway.

We are very sorry we cannot be with Eileen, Emma, Paul and Gary and all the family and friends to pay our respects and celebrate Phil’s life.

Apart from the many extended family gatherings over the years, Most of my memories of Phil are the great times we had in the early days on the ‘Boys skiing trips’, which were an annual event for many years with Phil always being the life and soul of the Apres Ski after a hard day on the slopes. Also later on, when our children grew up, with Emma, Paul, Sophie, Katie and Danny, when the hotel wine lists were as important as the snow conditions.

One event brought to mind is when we were on one of our annual trips to Tignes in France in the late 90’s. One of our group, Will Healy, had sadly lost his father recently, and was flying out separately on the Friday after his funeral and was being picked up by two of the group at Geneva airport some two hours away. The car broke down on route and got brought back to the resort without Will, who then had to spend the night in Geneva and make his own way by public transport the next day, with us arranging to meet him off the bus for lunch.

To set the scene, several of us were being guided around the resort by Andy, the boyfriend of the chalet host who was a firefighter from England, and wangled three months holiday a year so he could ski.

He decided to take us ‘Off piste’ from a black run overlooking the resort. The slope was not particularly bumpy but very steep.

We all gathered at the top of the slope, with Mark Huddleston( Huddy) bringing up the rear. As he came to a stop he caught an edge, fell over and started careering down the slope head first, gathering more speed towards these enormous rocks directly in his path, his skis being jettisoned on route.

I honestly thought that was it, and turned away fearing the worst. I skied down to the right of the rocks to retrieve his skis and was amazed to see Huddy sitting in a very small patch of snow just below the only gap in the rocks looking dazed and shaken but otherwise relatively unscathed.

Just then a cry went up and we were horrified to see Phil, cartwheeling like a rag doll down the same section of slope as Huddy.

From my vantage point, he too came flying through the same narrow gap, over Huddy, his boot just missing his head, and he too came to rest in one of the few small patches of snow amongst the rocks.

Phil too, was surprisingly unharmed, but later found he had ripped the collar of his expensive Bogner ski suit.

While we were all recovering, two local ‘pisteurs’ who patrol the slopes turned up to see if anyone was injured as they had been alerted by report staff who had seen this unfold through binoculars down in the resort below.

Through this near fatal experience, we were all late getting down to greet Will, but with a genuine excuse.

Several weeks later, we had a ski trip reunion dinner including the WAGs at a restaurant in Hitchin, and all the boys were sworn to secrecy about the incident as Phil said if Eileen ever found out, he would never be allowed to go again.

We had many great times away skiing, the most recent, Eileen also came for the first time with Emma, Nathan and Holly.

Great memories, Phil, you will be sorely missed.

Love Sue & Bim