David Kay RIP

Irascible, irascible, irascible; argumentative, opinionated, and alive to everything. But not now. Even the pastor commented that from what she'd heard, he'd be uncomfortable in that casket. Sadly Dave Kay (1966-2013) saw us off today (a bunch of curious eccentrics ourselves when you think about it) Us being mostly class of '88 at PCL whatever side of the fence. God knows; the admissions tutor and head of school must have been under some kind of spell. Those were the days, and we are all grateful. I'd just began tutoring, and was barely four years older than Dave and many of his class mates as they started out. Many of them were there at his funeral today; it's like a clan.
My own favourite Dave irascibility story involves my own work. I wrote a novel and it needed editing. Dave was kicking his heels in treatment, so why not? Over a summer while I was in Berlin a stream of re-writes came through, really good stuff, I was laughing out loud, walking down the street with Julie going,...'You know this is really good!.....I've got to publish!'  Then something weird happened, I couldn't remember writing the stuff, and whole new characters started to appear! I put it down to the steroids Dave was on; they make you kooky.
But after today I'm not so sure. So many stories about Dave's incredible ways. He got thrown out of the Bartlett, legend has, for letting off smoke bombs at his final diploma crit. He attracted more fire engines when he lit up the hillside of the M25 with the plan of the Barcelona Pavilion in fluorescent lamps. When asked to do a detail project on the way glass meets timber, he took a piece of glass and a piece of timber, and wrote 'hello' on each. When my pal Matt White moved in to a new flat Dave shared, he found a golden harp in Dave's room and him writing an application to drive HGV's. He was something else. As Matt said today, he always had a thing about big vehicles.
You know what, along with all the nurses and doctors and everybody who helped Dave, even the architectural world can just get a little bit of credit for being decent. Dave's old company Stock Woolstencroft (a number of whom were there today) when they learnt he had cancer, were as good as gold.
Our love to Louise and little Daisy, who read Blake's 'Tyger Tyger' without flinching in front of a  tearsome crowd at the City of London Cemetery, where Dave is now interned in a heritage grave.