Malcolm Davey RIP

Malcolm was a member here, posting under his real name and as Simply Grim. I know that several members here knew him.

We met here first (virtually, in the Padded Cell).  We were discussing beer, when he asked if I had been at my local pub the previous night. It turned out that we both drank there and had several mutual friends but did not know each other. We soon met up for a drink and quickly found that we shared so much in common; music, hi-fi, beer, sport, especially football. We spent many a happy evening (hi-fi) box swapping and drinking beer and listening to music much too loud, then writing stories in the hi-fi corner.

When Reading FC were doing well in the Championship Malcolm suggested that we get some season tickets for the second half of the season so that we could get tickets for when they were promoted to the Premier League. His reason was so that he could guarantee seeing his beloved Newcastle United. We both adopted Reading as our second team and went to the Madejski Stadium for the rest of that season. Our alternate Saturdays involved going to the Hobgoblin pub in Reading for a couple of beers, catching the bus to the football then more beer afterwards back in the town centre before pouring onto the train home.

We bought our tickets for the next season. The fixture list came out and the game against the Magpies was towards the end of the season. We enjoyed many more games there cheering the Royals until the evening when Newcastle came down. The game was goalless at half time but when the winner came in the second half Malcolm leapt out of his seat cheering - he suddenly realised that it had been scored by Dave Kitson for Reading AGAINST Newcastle.

We went to many concerts together, the last being Van der Graaf Generator at the Barbican last summer. I was already in London that day. Malcolm always tried to fit in too much into his days so was running about doing things here, there and everywhere. Late afternoon he rang me to arrange where to meet up for a drink and told me which train he was catching. I said that he was cutting it a bit fine, the concert was due to start at 7:30. He had thought it was at 8:00 at the Royal Festival Hall, which is near Waterloo! Getting to the Barbican involves a tube journey and wouldn't give us enough time for a pre-concert drink! He managed to catch an earlier train and, even then, only just made it in time. We had seats in the middle of Row C, fantastic! It was the second best concert I'd ever been to. The best was also with Malcolm, VdGG at the RFH (hence the confusion).

As I write this I am drinking one of our favourite beers (Espresso Stout) and listening to some of the music that we had enjoyed together (Wilko Johnson, The Chameleons, Gandalf Murphy, Caravan).

Malcolm was larger than life in many ways. He had been fighting cancer and finally lost on Tuesday. He died peacefully in hospital.

I've lost a great friend, drinking partner and concert buddy.

My thoughts are with his widow and their daughter.