I first saw Simon from the 4th floor window of a flat on Chesterton Road in Cambridge in summer 1973. Simon had come to move into the room I was about to move out of. That is how I met him - or so I remember it. Then, in 1975 I drove the small lorry that moved Simon's and other peoples stuff from Cambridge to Sheffield to Leeds to Manchester. I worked with Simon on occupational safety and health (and on things like doing the block-work in the cellar) from then till the late 1990s. Simon was a really rare one-off: utterly committed, extremely sharp, devoid of personal ambition, and completely clear about what needed to happen and determined to make it so. I last saw Simon this autumn in field on the edge of the peak district, discussing the plants in the field, about which he knew a great deal. When someone dies, the trite point "that the world will be a poorer place with them gone" is often made. In Simon's case it will be true. Seb Schmoller