"All that lives must die." So, for heaven's sake, carry on creatively.

Introducing three great friends ... and a few thoughts about existence.

In the last two months of 2024 three close friends died. It is a harrowing toll of souls who are sorely missed. But, here, I want to stem the tears and celebrate them as wonderful exemplars of - how shall we describe it? - life-affirming-ness.

The fact is, each of us pops into this world out of … nowhere: a bundle of atoms that comes together with highly evolved onboard and social systems for sustaining a heightened level of energy. But it’s time-limited: the price for bucking the entropic inevitability is death.

Shakespeare succinctly expressed this point when he had Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, encourage her son to ‘get over’ the death of his father:

Thou know’st ‘tis common, all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

Which is to say, life and death are conjoined and inevitable, in any and all situations - a condition that applies to humans and to all other creatures, and to every plant, and to … well … everything.

So, surely, what really matters is what we do while we’re here. After all, that’s the bit that we have some sort of influence over.

There are, of course, many ways to fulfill this obligation but, here, I want to focus on just one - Creativity. To clarify that link come back with me to a speech given in London, in 2008, by Lord Saatchi, to an audience of aspiring ‘creatives’ in the advertising industry. In that speech he referenced Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002. Here’s a little of what Saatchi had to say:

The real importance of creativity does not lie in economics. It is important because creativity is a force for good in people’s lives. It is the hope for the future. The Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul confirmed the point. He was asked whether he was happy. His answer was that you can only be happy if three conditions are fulfilled: first, you are doing something creative; second, it is going well; and third, you think (even if nobody else does) that it is important.¹

All three of my friends were creatives. As it happens, significant creatives. In the order of their passing they were:

• Paul Bagshawe, typographer and graphic designer.

• David Hodge, pioneering British audio engineer.

• Herb Schmitz, photo-journalist and photographer.

Paul Bagshawe, 1962-2024

Just three weeks before he died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack Paul presented a gift to one of his clients - a new typeface that he had created to celebrate the client firm’s tenth anniversary. It was so typical of his colossal generosity of spirit.

The above photo (by Paul himself) also shows some of his publishing output. Paul was an absolute enthusiast with extraordinary talents.

I was thrilled when he became an early subscriber to this Substack: he particularly commented on the autobiographical ‘fragments’ that I write and, by early 2024, was talking about researching his own family.

The working title that he arrived at for his own autobiographical work was The Eccentric Bagshawe Brothers, and he and I discussed various aspects of it … at some length. Indeed, an email to me in April 2024 reads: “I blame you for getting me into this!”

However, those nascent efforts mean that there are some early fragments and references, and I have permission from Paul’s widow, Sara, to publish some of these materials. So, watch out, in the near future, for a posthumous guest post or two, including Alexander Ollerenshaw, of Chelmorton, and the perpetual motion.

David Hodge, 1953-2024

“I first met David in a sound recording studio in a Soho basement.” That’s how I started my tribute at David’s funeral. We first met towards the end of 1976 at Molinare sound recording studios, at the time in Broadwick Street in London’s Soho.

It turned out that our backgrounds were similar in some important ways - not least, our shared uncertainties about life, the universe and everything - and we became firm friends - a friendship that was to endure right up to the end of his life.

Some of our adventures will appear in my autobiographical fragments so I won’t expand on them here, except for a quick reference to Romeo and Juliet, and Kermit the Frog.

The Voiceover Book : Don’t Eat Toast, co-written by David and Stephen Kemble, a long-time text and voice coach at the Royal Shakespeare Company, was published in 2014.

Stephen also gave a tribute at David’s funeral and reminded everyone of David’s love of Romeo and Juliet. David had been introduced to the play at school and had been, so to say, knocked out by it. Stephen brilliantly wove some of Juliet’s words into his tribute:

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.²

Beautiful. Perfect.

As for Kermit, when David and I met, as I said in my own tribute, “The Muppet Show was a big thing on TV at this time and we fooled around with that up-in-the-throat Kermit delivery … so I gifted David his own personal Kermit.”

For the rest of his life, David kept Kermit close by him and, after the funeral, David’s daughter and son, Laura and Sam , asked me to take over the care of him. Hence the photo at the top of this post where, Kermit is, of course, declaiming Juliet’s wonderful speech.

Herb Schmitz, 1933-2024

Born in Germany, Herb’s timing was interesting: just 28 days after he was born, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as chancellor of the country.

Fortunately, the young boy emerged unscathed from the Second World War and, later, came to England where he was fortunate enough to meet and marry the lovely Maureen. He took up photo-journalism and, from early on, his artistic and technical prowess was recognized.

When we met, in the early 1970s, Herb was also undertaking general commercial commissions. The photo just above, for Sanderson fabrics, is just one example.

Subsequently, I commissioned and accompanied Herb on hotel company shoots in the UK, and around the world including in Majorca, Monte Carlo and Barbados. We became firm friends.

In London, do take the opportunity to visit the National Portrait Gallery where three fine images by Herb, including one of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, continue to display the skill of a truly great photographer.

---

So, three great friends have shuffled off this mortal coil. Oh, there’s Shakespeare’s Hamlet again, and the oh, so famous “To be, or not to be, that is the question …” speech …

To sleep; perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death who knows what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause …³

But the influence of the three friends lives on. Many of us will remember them for the glorious contributions they made, and will go on making, to the world.

That is perhaps the key point: life does goes on. It’s why I feel confident that all three of the deceased will approve my concluding this tribute to them in spectacularly bad taste with a snippet from a Joe Orton play, Loot.⁴

FAY. You’ve been a widower for three days. Have you considered a second marriage yet?

MCLEAVY (struggling into his coat). No.

FAY. Why not?

MCLEAVY. I’ve been so busy with the funeral.

FAY. You must find someone to take Mrs McLeavy’s place. She wasn’t perfect.

MCLEAVY. A second wife would be a physical impossibility.

FAY. I’ll hear none of that. My last husband at sixty came through with flying colours. Three days after our wedding he was performing extraordinary feats.

That’s the spirit! I can visualize all three of them giggling at that.

Thanks for reading.

1. Lord Saatchi. Address to Creative Britain in Golden Square (16th September 2008)

2. William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 2 (printed 1597)

3. William Shakespeare. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Act 3, Scene (printed 1603)

4. Joe Orton. Loot (1966)