I learned with great sadness last weekend that a former colleague had passed away.

Professor Trevor Parfitt will live in my memory for exhibiting that comparatively rare combination: scholarly excellence and unfailing kindness.

Before my time at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, a former student had drawn a sketch of a cat on the whiteboard in Trevor's office. He loved it, and wouldn't erase it (in fact, when I borrowed his office for a semester, while he was away on study leave, it was a condition of use that I didn't clean off the cat, so I photographed it, just in case anything untoward happened, and I would have to restore it...)


He felt this cartoon epitomized his character. And it did. Cats are extraordinarily smart. They are calm, reassuring, and comfortable. They don't expend energy needlessly. Quintessentially, they are good to be around.

Thus it was with Trevor.

He brightened our working days with his support, ready wit, sense of perspective, and refusal to take anything too seriously.

Conversations with him would range from international development (his specialty) to British politics (of which he had a really astute grasp) to movies to jazz. They were always insightful, irreverent, and fun.

These qualities won him quite a following among the students, who, like his colleagues, benefited enormously from his blend of incisiveness and geniality.

Wanting to mark his passing, in our own little way, we thought a sunset toast would be the most appropriate idea. The occasion turned to farce when we locked ourselves out on our Panagsama Beach balcony, and Nigel, clad only in boxers and T-shirt, had to climb over the balustrade, and shimmy the entire length of the shared balcony, in order to alert the staff, and get us freed.

I include this detail because Trevor would have found it highly amusing, and laughed uproariously.

Once liberated, we drank to the life and memory of a quite unique individual, who touched so many lives for good.

Farewell, old friend. The world will surely miss you.