In Memory of Brian Winder

1936 – 19 July 2023

Brian Winder was born in 1936 and brought up in Dublin, the youngest of four brothers, including Frank, Cyril and Percy. With his father being a West Brit and his mother having an Irish nationalist background, he learned liberalism and internationalism and the idea of cooperation at an early age.

He joined a choir at five years old but promptly got thrown out when they discovered he was tone deaf. This didn't stop him singing enthusiastically each week at church throughout his life. In his school days, he instead turned his mind to learning reams of poetry in English and other languages. Later in life at family meals he was known to randomly quote passages of poetry and everyone would stop and listen, nodding quizzically!

Brian went to study for the Jesuit priesthood and with the Jesuits he gained degrees in Classics and Philosophy. He always considered it a huge privilege to have as companions at that vital stage young men who were generous and intelligent and content with simple things. However he became unsure about this vocation, since Brian was too much of a free spirit and didn't like to follow lots of rules. So the Jesuits sent him to Zambia on a mission for three years to think about it. There he taught in a secondary school in the Zambian bush, spoke the local language fluently, and enjoyed the local Tonga people's hospitality. His love for Africa began then and continued throughout his life.

After coming to the UK he worked as a teacher for a year in a chaotic all-girls private school in Seven Kings, which was great fun, and then as a teacher in an inner-city London school. He took advantage of the long summer holidays to travel on a motorbike all over Europe and around the Mediterranean to North Africa.

In the mid-1960s he did a course in the newfangled computer programming, and took a job at Marconi in Chelmsford at the end of it. In those heady 1960s he met his wife Anne, and it has been a joy ever since. Anne recollects that in the early days he was always talking about his plans to go off travelling and having adventures — so much so that when he proposed to Anne she asked him why bother marrying at all if all he wanted to do was go off travelling!

After getting married they then went to live in Zambia, where Brian worked for eight years at Anglo American copper mines, and while there he qualified as an accountant. Their three boys, Paul, Billy and Kevin, were born there to enjoy the Zambian sun and the friendly African people, with visits to the neighbouring states — Zaire, Malawi, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda. His love of Africa never faded in later years, as of a lost girlfriend.

Coming back to Europe, he worked in Ireland for two years in a mood of middle-aged nostalgia, again in the area of computers and accountancy, and then settled down to work in a similar vein in London for eighteen years with Marsh McLennan and Deloitte.

Brian kept his sense of adventure and desire to travel throughout his life. As well as numerous family camping holidays in Europe, he went on a number of travelling adventures, such as taking Paul on an Alpine training course in Chamonix and making an attempt at climbing Mont Blanc, and hiking in France and other countries. On one family skiing holiday to Scotland he and Paul took a day out to climb the Buachaille mountain, one of the most recognisable mountains in Scotland. Not being fully prepared, as they only had one ice axe between them, they shared it and made do, having a grand adventure along the ridge before sliding back down into the valley.

Brian's full name is Adrian Brian Winder, and he was known by everyone as Adrian until one day on a group skiing holiday in Scotland he decided he wanted to be called Brian from then on. Throughout the holiday, though, people would be calling him Brian but he didn't answer, as he had obviously forgotten about the name change himself!

When Paul was kidnapped in Panama in the year 2000, Brian went out to the jungles to look for him. He worked tirelessly over the nine months looking for Paul, and later wrote the book A Search for a Son about the episode.

When he was in his seventies Brian also returned to Zambia for a trip to see the old house helpers who lived in mud huts in the Zambian bush. Brian thought nothing of sleeping on floors and roughing it on the trip. He kept in touch with the Zambian gardener, Climon Simbalé, who had wanted to come to England to work in the family's garden when they left Zambia.

Brian was known for his great energy and inability to sit still — one of Kevin's childhood friends called him the Duracell man. He was up by 5am every day, even at weekends, and often even earlier, sometimes 3 or 4am. He would spend these early hours working on all his charity projects.

When Brian retired early at around 60, it didn't mean his hard work stopped — he spent 25 years working to help others he saw in need, more often the homeless, refugees and anyone facing difficulties. Brian's philosophy was that if you saw a person fall down you would help pick them up, but he applied this to anyone he saw in need. Brian helped many, many people through his charity work; with various homeless charities he raised over two and a half million pounds over the years.

He helped refugees from the Serb concentration camps in the '90s and furnished their accommodation in Chelmsford with recycled furniture. He began the furniture recycling charity by moving donated furniture in his estate car, but the charity grew much bigger and got a Lottery grant of £400,000, and Brian volunteered there for 12 years.

He helped to found and set up the CHESS homeless charity with the Quaker Pearl Marriage, and worked there for 13 years. After that he founded Helping Hands Essex with others for alcohol rehabilitation, volunteering there for 4 years. Moving out of Chelmsford, he volunteered with Streets2Homes, a day centre for the homeless in Harlow, for 3 years. He also volunteered to help set up Hope House Essex in Braintree for 5 years, which included buying two houses for them. Further afield he volunteered to raise funds with Lopez Quichine, which resulted in building five schools in Mozambique, including one large secondary school.

One of his friends said to him that he was a saint with all the charity work he was doing, but Brian said he just saw the need and got on with it. Brian received many awards for his charity work, and later was awarded an OBE, however he turned it down, saying that it was a team effort and shouldn't be his alone.

His favourite hobby in later life was country dancing, where he met many friends. Brian was also an avid and skilled croquet player. He took joy in teaching others to play and sharing good strategies. He coached everyone, even his opponents, because he wanted everyone to understand the game and have a good time. We always did. Thanks to him, we have many fond memories of games played in the sunshine, cloud, and even rain.

Brian's needs were often very simple and he was the easiest person in the world to buy a Christmas present for. Every year he asked for a tube of Rolos and ended up with several. Last Christmas he changed his mind — he asked for some A4 paper and got reams of the stuff. He always kept a positive attitude and had an infectious laugh. Tom Hart Dyke, who was kidnapped with Paul in Panama, wrote in the condolence card he sent to Mum: “I've never met a man who could make me laugh so much with his infectious laughter.”

With Brian's boundless energy, Paul surmised that he would keep going at his energetic pace and then one day just keel over suddenly! Later in life Brian began to go blind, and was no longer able to drive, but he would still be out on his bike cycling around Chelmsford even as his blindness advanced. He crashed the bike on numerous occasions, into bollards, and also in the underpass at the Army and Navy roundabout, and injured himself on a number of occasions. Anne thought that one day he would get killed on his bike, but this didn't stop him, of course — Brian often did his own thing regardless of any advice given!

Towards the end of his life his blindness advanced, and he could not read books or see the TV clearly or see the weeds to do the gardening.

Brian was a loving husband, brother, father and grandfather to Emilia and Maddie, and with his passing, the world has lost a kind and generous spirit who dedicated much of his life to helping others in need. A few people have recently commented to Anne that he was a one-off. In Brian's own words, his passions were two: truth and justice — sadly not greatly supported in the modern world.

If you ever wish to remember him in a quiet moment in the future, he used to like a tipple of Irish Baileys cream after dinner — raise a glass to him when you get the chance.

In Pictures

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