Richard ‘Nick’ Scott
1942 - 2022
In loving memory of Nick who sadly passed away at the Gloucester Royal Hospital on the 24th January, aged 79 years.
Funeral Service Details
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Nick, you will be sadly missed around Horseshoe lake. A true gentleman, you always had a smile and a laugh for everyone. I will miss your cheeky cockney banter. Up the Apples n Pears my friend, Rest in Peace old boy. Condolences to your family.
We caught a few fish I think, but mostly I remember laughing. We ate cake, drank tea, sorted the problems of the world. We talked a lot about family who you loved dearly. I had a joyous day on that fateful day you caught your common, your biggest carp. The pair of us were like a couple of kids. I don’t think I’ve seen a grown man with a bigger smile. You were a good man and I will truly miss you. My heart goes out to your family. I apologise for making you late for your tea. Rip mate.
Nick, it’s not possible to express how much you will be missed! I always looked forward to your visits & your face peeking in through the window (the number of times you gave me a fright i’m sure you did it on purpose sometimes ;-)). No matter what was going on you always came in with a smile on your face and a tale to tell. A true gentleman who touched so many lives here at Horseshoe Lake. My heart goes out to your wife and daughters. Rest in peace Nick, you will never be forgotten xx
I first met Nick in the winter of 2009. Having freshly moved from deepest Yorkshire to the Cotswolds to work at Horseshoe Lake in Lechlade. Nick was a regular angler on the lake and I’d bump into him on my walks around. It soon became clear that ‘bumping’ into Nick was never going to be short bump. We have a saying up our way ‘he could talk the hind legs of a Donkey’ , I don’t know where the saying originates from but I’m guessing the guy who coined it knew Nick. He certainly could talk.
As our ‘bumps’ became more frequent, and despite the language barrier, we became good friends and I very much enjoyed spending time with Nick on the bank and listening to his tales of old, and throwing a few of my own in occasionally. We did laugh a lot, although his penchant for eating raw onions like an apple always somewhat freaked me out.
After spending most of his life a ducking and a diving, and a bobbin and a weaving in that London, Nick sold up and, along with his family, moved to Lechlade so he could be near his beloved Horseshoe, where he spent many a day and night. He loved life here and took to it like a duck to water, and we’d often talk about the social differences between our respective ‘homelands’ and where we’d ended up. We’d laugh at the stark contrast. I used to say he had gone from drinking with the Krays to drinking with Laurence Llewelyn Bowen. The comical side of our respective relocations wasn’t lost on either of us.
It wasn’t long before Nick and I started going for a few drinks together, I can’t tell you how much I loved those nights. As comical and good company as nick was on the bank, he excelled in the pub. Like myself Nick loved the pub, not so much the shiny new gastro wine bar style pubs of today, but the old spit and sawdust pubs that we both grew up in, but to be honest, the surroundings were always secondary when you were in Nicks company, and again, to be honest, we could both turn a gastro wine bar into spit and sawdust in no time at all anyway.
The first time we went out, we went to the Crown in Lechlade and we got proper drunk, not fresh, or merry, but proper drunk. We left around midnight and I could just about walk a bit steadier than Nick so i volunteered to walk him home safely. Having steered are way through a myriad of snickets and ginnels we got to Nicks house where I watched him in and shot off in case Vicky came out and told me off for getting him so wrecked, although looking back, I’m sure it wasn’t her first rodeo. Having shot off though it suddenly occurred to me I didn’t have a clue where I was or how to get home. I did eventually manage to get my bearings and eventually staggered my way home.
My favourite parts of drinking with Nick were listening and watching him get steadily more cockney with each drink, he did make me laugh with his mannerisms, he couldn’t be more cockney if he tried. My favourite little trick when we were drinking was to wait till he’d had a few and bang the Rolling Stones on the jukebox and sit back while Nick did his best Mick Jagger, he was brilliant at it and my laughter and encouragement only ever spurred him on. He had his own little tricks he’d play on me though, it wasn’t all one way. He’d get me off on a subject knowing full well I’d bite and half way through my rant I’d catch him with that schoolboy grin, smiling at me knowingly and we’d laugh our heads off.
It wasn’t just the good times where Nick Shon through though. We’ve had our fair share of difficult times on Horseshoe and Nick was always on hand to help me through each of them. One particular event sticks in my mind, and will do forever. I’d discovered all was not well and that some people were plotting to sell the lake. I spoke to a few people about it but couldn’t for the life of me get anyone to believe me, I think most people thought I was going mad, but Nick believed me from the off and was a massive help in eventually thwarting the plot. It was a nightmare time to be honest and many a day I felt I was banging my head against a wall and getting nowhere but Nick would always say “You can’t let the bad guys win Miles” and I knew I had to dust myself down and go again, if only not to let Nick down. We did stop the plot eventually but at one stage it looked like I could be off to jail when the conspirators filed a half a million pound lawsuit against me and a few others who were now on board. I felt like jacking it in a few times, but each time I felt that, I heard Nicks voice saying it again. “You can’t let the bad guys win” and that together with the thought that I couldn’t let Nick down, more than anything kept me going till eventually we did save the lake.
Nick loved Horseshoe, and I think it’s safe to say everyone on Horseshoe loved Nick. I certainly did, I loved him dearly, and the thought of not seeing him again is horrible. It’s almost too much sometimes. Not only did he fish the lake, he came to every event we held, he came to every work party, he was a constant, and to have him not here anymore is going to be hard to come to terms with.
We used to have a feral cat on Horseshoe that the anglers used to look after. In the winter though when the lake was quiet and no one was around, Nick would come most days, hail, rain or snow, with a tin of tuna for the cat, and if for some reason he couldn’t make it, he’d always ring me up to make sure I went and fed it. He genuinely loved animals, I look after quite a few geese who come to the lake each year, and Nick would always come and have a chat with them when I was feeding them, he loved it when I trained them to come into the office, he laughed his head off, everyone else, not so much.
Away from Horseshoe nick had a lovely family who he doted on, he was so proud of his daughters and would always tell me how they were getting on, he was massively proud of them. He loved travel, especially Vegas. From the tales he used to tell, I could never help but picture him strutting down Sunset strip doing his best cockney geezer swagger. He went to Mount Everest when he was 70, how mad is that?.
I could go on forever talking about Nick, but at the moment his passing is still to raw and it saddens me far too much just now. The hurt of loss will fade with time but the memories certainly won’t. Nick was a genuine diamond. There’s all sorts of superlatives get thrown about, about people, but you know, when you pass, if someone says you were a good man, that’s all you need to hear, and Nick was a good man. Good men are few and far between, and I’m fortunate to have known one, I count my blessings and Nick was one of them, he certainly enriched my life just with his friendship. And you know what also? he won’t ever really leave us, he’ll be with us forever in one way or the other. I like to think he’s just gone upstairs to tell the big man to “Hey you, get off of my cloud”
God bless you Nick
PS What the Hell is Richard all about?
We loved Nick & his cheeky smiles “watcha”..
Our loving thoughts are with Virginia,Rebecca, Melanie, Alan & Jon & all friends…..deepest sympathy..
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