I first met Paul at 1978 at Grey College, Durham - he was a 2nd year physics undergrad, I was a 1st year undergrad, and we quickly became friends.... he introduced me to D&D; I introduced him to computers and it rapidly became apparent that although at university he took no computer courses, he joined the computer club and self-taught himself to a level in algorithm development, systems level hacking and games programming that were exceptional.... if he had taken the same degree course I took he'd have been the first person to get a 1st class honours degree in the subject. (I got a 2/2) We had some fantastic times at Uni... weekends in Thirsk where his parents had a bungalow, and I'd visit his home in Sunderland and got to know his mum, dad and two lovely sisters. Paul would do favours without being asked; he had a way of just knowing that he could do something. One in particular was in 1982; myself and my girlfriend at the time were going to spend a couple of weeks in the Lake District but were having trouble figuring out the logistics; Paul somehow knew this and drove us to the lake district in his mini (which had a union jack on the roof!) Later on when I went through a particularly bad time (no details) Paul called me and told me to come and spend some time with him in Newton Aycliffe where he was living. One evening he was going to cook a special dinner for the two of us; grilled fillet steak... and he'd got his grill on fairly cool and was going to give them about 10 minutes per side to make sure they were cooked. I've always liked my steaks cooked on the outside and still mooing on the inside so I said No, I'll cook the steaks... I don't think he'd ever had a steak cooked like that before, and Paul being Paul meant that he very quickly transformed from a 24 year old who could heat up beans to an expert cook, far beyond my ability. I've so many lovely memories of Paul but I can't write any more because I'm missing him too much.