It’s very sad news that we have lost another good OE in January 2023, aged just 61.

I have known Andy since 1973, when we first walked down the drive as first year Emanuel School boys. He was unlucky to be in Rodney house but, on the flip side, he proved to be a stalwart teammate through our first 4 years of school A team rugby where I played 7 and he played 6. We also played in the school 1st XV in 1979/80 and then again for OEs where he played 52 1st XV matches in the back row and at lock during the 1980s before his work as a policeman took him to Northumbria in the late ‘90s.

His standout moment as an OE rugby player was a man of the match performance against London Irish in the Surrey Cup in 1983, when we beat a side containing 4 full Irish internationals, in terribly muddy/rainy conditions and he was outstanding.

He was a great tourist and I have many memories of his antics and high jinks, all reasonably above board, in Copenhagen on the 1984 OERFC rugby tour. He earned his nickname, Snorky, (the elephant from the Banana Splits cartoon) from that tour and it stuck; he was forever known as Snorky.

Andy was also a chorister, managing to combine rugby training with being in the chapel choir and singing at various concerts. He had a lovely singing voice, a cheeky smile on his face almost all of the time and for a big man, he had a gentle nature and was always great company.

Andy had considered joining the Army, then settled on joining the Met Police in 1984, where he eventually ended up in the counter terrorism unit, before heading off to be a detective with the Northumberland Police Force in 1999. Stints with Cumbria Police in Penrith followed before going back to the north east to be a police investigator with Cleveland Police, his last posting.

Andy had been ill for a while, battling cancer for the last few years, initially in his kidneys but latterly, and terminally, his brain. I kept in touch with him and he always came back cheerily to say one day he would get down and see all of his old mates again. Sadly, he never did but he will always be in our memories – as we OEs say, “simple duty done” and Andy always did his duty wherever he was and whatever he was required to do.

He is survived by his wife Amanda-Jane and his 3 children, twins, Charles and Olivia, and Jemma.

RIP our dear friend.

Brian Cassidy (OE1973-80)