[Nigel Mace]

My first best man who was, in his own way, as extra-ordinary as RPL, chose Lister's Idle Demon as one of his myriad of school prizes and, after John's death, I have it still. No book, of any kind, has meant more to me throughout all of life's vicissitudes, and when my partner Vanessa and I met Richard two years ago it was to discover that the wonderful, renaissance man John and I had always imagined from his poetry was exactly what Richard was. He invited me to read him some of my favourites of his poems and, to my delight, confirmed my sense of how their subjects had engaged him, particularly "The Old Peasant" and "Three Triolets". We have lost a humane giant as well as one of the most talented and beautifully expressive persons it was possible to imagine. Wry, witty, touching and deeply sincere R. P. Lister was all that our debased civility has lost. Now his poetry will remind of us of the world that might have been. Amidst the universe's "reek of turpentine", I hope he can scent our incense of remembrance on the breeze. He is unforgettable, deeply mourned and ever impishly present as we confront the difficult world he now has left. Presumably now he knows whether, as to the road on which we all tread, he "was off it/Or on."