Sir Richard's many acts of kindness

Feb 22 2008 By Maureen Messent

A GOOD few years ago, when he was known as Uncle Dickie to journalists, I had proof of the innate goodness of the late Sir Richard Knowles.

One Sunday afternoon, I opened my door to a deputation of Irishmen worried sick about their old friend who languished in a landlord's attic.

They told me he was crying with pain.

I went with them and was horrified to find him slumped half in and half out of bed, his limbs brittle and thin as twigs as we tried to make him comfortable, his skin like tissue paper.

His doctor wasn't available. An ambulance wasn't forthcoming because I had stupidly told the ambulance service operator that he had been in this state for several days: therefore he didn't warrant emergency transport, I was told.

These days, of course, he would get it.

So I rang Dick Knowles, shattering his postprandial peace and explained.

Within half an hour, an ambulance had arrived and the old boy was in a bed at St Mary's Hospice, where he died peacefully and pain-free from stomach cancer a week later.

Dick Knowles was behind many of what Wordsworth described as little, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.