Written 7 November 2026

Today I learned of the death of my dear friend Henry Lawrence.

I first met Henry in 1994, when I started going to the Bath juggling workshop to distract myself from my separation from my wife.

We bonded easily, with his jolly and eccentric demeanour, and it turned out we had one additional thing in common, as he was also separated and going through a divorce that he was finding hard.

We became firm friends, with me often going round to visit, as he was on my way home from work. We spent many evenings sharing dinner and drinks, and comparing notes on our newly single existences.

Here are a few random memories from my many years with Henry. As many of these memories are 30 years old, I may have got some details wrong!

• One of my first encounters with Henry was in the pub after the juggling workshop. He leaned over to give a bollocking to my friend Danny, because Danny had “radioactive warning” tape wrapped around his juggling clubs. As a radio-physicist, Henry expressed the importance of not diluting the meaning of hazard warning labels.
  
  It was the most gentle and humane bollocking, and I believe Danny did not take it personally. But I remember Henry being a little embarrassed when he later became friends with Danny, and was reminded of how they first met.
  
  
• One night in the pub after juggling, Henry asked “what are you doing on Thursday, Richard?” “Going to work?” I replied. “How about coming to Seville with me to a flamenco festival?” Three days later we were on a plane to Spain for a wonderful adventure.
  
  In his job he calculated dosing for radiotherapy machines, and he wrote some software to model the calculations. He released it as open-source, and offered to train anyone who wanted to use it, if they paid his travel expenses. So he flew all around the world, spreading this gift. And made lots of friends along the way.
  
  It was one such friend from a hospital in Seville who had extended the invitation, and we stayed in her house, and were invited to their private hospitality at the festival. What an experience.
  
  
• I remember him discussing his plans to go for a holiday in Moldova. I suggested he read the book “Playing the Moldovans at Tennis” by the comedian Tony Hawks, as it had contained lots of useful information about travel to Moldova, and the intricacies of obtaining the right visas. “Oh, I already phoned Tony for advice” he said.
  
  Of course he did, nobody was out-of-bounds in his mind, his upbringing just assumed there were no social barriers, and when you have that self-belief, you realise how artificial those social barriers are.
  
  
• One dinner time, Henry was frying something in a saucepan with lots of oil. Then the oil caught fire. His reaction was swift, but somewhat flawed.
  
  He picked up the saucepan, and ran around the kitchen looking for somewhere to put it. Then realised it was too hot to hold, so put it down on the floor. Then it melted a hole in the lino, so he picked it up again, and ran out the house, and threw the burning oil in the hedge.
  
  Returning to the kitchen he decided the best thing was to cool down the pan under a running tap, which caused an explosion of steam, thankfully missing his face.


  
  I couldn’t have scripted a public information film better. I did ask him why he didn’t use the fire blanket hanging next to the cooker, and he admitted he forget he had that.
  
  That hole in the kitchen floor was there for the entire time I knew Henry until he moved out.
  
  
• In 1995, Henry invited me to Glastonbury, working for him as a volunteer for his service called, if I remember correctly, “Take a Message to Merlin”. The idea was our team would be stationed at the six information points around the site, with computers.
  
  In those pre-mobile phone days, anyone wanting to coordinate with their friends could come to us, tell us their message to type into the computer, for their friends to later pick up.
  
  But the genius was a seventh volunteer walked between the six computers with a floppy disk, so that the messages could be picked up at any information point. That job was the best job at the festival, just wandering around the site with your disk, taking in the sights and sounds.
  
  The team of about 35 all camped together, with Henry as “father” of the group, brewing coffee in a jug with a tea strainer. It was a wonderful time.
  
  It was there I met Henry’s lodger Kate, who was also volunteering. I gave her a lift home afterwards, and we became good friends for many years.
  
  
• This message service at festivals ran for several years. I particularly remember one time at Phoenix festival when Henry and I were working our computer at the information point at about 10pm, when a girl came up with tears running down her face, and asked the students on the main desk when the next train to London was. They just glanced up, pointed at the train timetable, and went back to their conversation.
  
  Henry and I realised that wouldn’t cut it. This girl was in significant distress and needed help, not to mention that no trains would be running at that time of night anyway.
  
  Henry looked after her, while I phoned her boyfriend in London for advice. He agreed to drive up to Stratford to pick her up. We went and collected her belongings from the campsite, and Henry sat with her in the welfare tent while I talked to the security guards to persuade them to allow the boyfriend to drive on to site to pick her up.
  
  I still remember that night as one of my favourite times with Henry. We both just wanted to help people in trouble.
  
  
• Henry always had wild schemes. 19 times out of 20 they’d come to nothing, or he’d attempt them but they’d fall flat of their face. But the one time out of 20 they worked, they were genius.
  
  His camping barn project in Bath was one of the most accomplished things he did. I was so proud of him, and the various events held there after completion were brilliant.
  
  He very nearly ran a circus stage with Banksy at the Dismaland event in Weston-super-mare. He was contacted by Banksy’s team, and sworn to secrecy about who it was for.
  
  I remember him having a discussion with me and my circus tutor Jackie about booking acts. Jackie was getting more and more annoyed because Henry couldn’t give much details about the event. She said “how can I help when you don’t even know what you want?” Henry pointed out that he did know exactly what he wanted, he just couldn’t tell her! That didn’t really help.
  
  It was only after Dismaland came and went that he revealed what it was about. Sadly, for whatever reason, Banksy and team decided they couldn’t get the circus stage to work at the event, so it was all for nothing.
  
  The wild scheme that I wish had seen the light of day, was to idea to create a permanent “unplugged” festival site on one of his fields in Bath. He wanted to build a wooden parabolic stage, such that an acoustic band could perform and be heard without amplification, much like the wartime experimental “sound mirrors” on the south coast. I’m sceptical about whether it would have actually worked, but like Leonardo da Vinci, Henry was a dreamer with ideas that might just have worked. Maybe.
  
  
• Sometime in the 1990s, Henry invited me to join his band. I couldn’t play any instrument, but he needed a drummer, and reasoned that as a juggler, I’d have rhythm. I muddled my way along many a gig, trying to keep the band in time, and occasionally doing a bit of juggling too.
  
  Some band memories:
  
  
  • We mostly performed Henry’s songs, but one time we were doing a cover of someone else’s. Henry kept getting one line wrong, inserting an extra word every time. Which meant he got out of sync with the music. His “solution” was to ask me to add an extra beat into that bar to give him enough time. 🤦
    
    
  • He arranged for us to drive up to Great Yarmouth for a festival ran by a dentist in his back garden. Everyone slept on the floor of the house or dental surgery for the weekend. Awesome time.
    
    
  • We performed at a festival on the south coast arranged by Attila the Stockbroker (a great performance poet, and a friend of Henry). We drove down in Henry’s kit-car jeep, pulling a trailer with our gear. It was a lovely day, so of course we had the top down. Henry loved his convertibles.
    
    At one point I was driving, and Henry sat in the back so he could serenade us on his mandolin, in the absence of a car stereo. Because of the trailer, other drivers only saw the hippy in the back seat as they pulled level, and we got many confused/amazed double-takes.
    
    
• Many years later, when Henry had formed a new band, he asked me to help him make some videos from their performances. I gladly helped, and was one of the videographers on this video (11th September by Figure of 80)
  
  It’s such a powerful song, it sends shivers down my spine whenever I hear it. I have a feeling it was written by Henry, but I’m not 100% sure.
  
  A few weeks later Henry phoned me and asked me “do you like rum?” I said I wasn’t sure. He said he was going to drop round after work to give me a bottle to thank me for the filming.
  
  I gladly accepted the rum, and very much enjoyed drinking it. A few months later some friends asked if I liked rum, and I said yes. They provided me with a drink, and I then realised I don’t like rum, I like nice rum. Cheers Henry!
  
  
• Henry tried to teach me guitar on several occasions. I didn’t get very far, just a few chords, but I had so many fun evenings with him strumming away on his lovely-sounding guitar.


  
  Eventually I decided to get my own guitar, and asked him what type his was as it had such a beautiful sound. He’d had it since a teenager I think, and it turned out the manufacturer still made them, just on generation 8 or 9. I managed to find a modern version second-hand, and it sounded just as lovely. When someone more talented than me plays it, though.
  
  
• We spent lots of time together at juggling events, generally chatting and drinking, occasionally playing board games. Sometimes we’d actually juggle.


  
  One time he visited the Bristol juggling club which was my local at the time. He asked to pass clubs (two people juggling six clubs, passing the clubs between us). Unfortunately at the Bath club they usually juggled “4 count” where every fourth throw goes to your partner. At the Bristol club we usually juggled “3 count” where every third throw goes to your partner. We liked that better because you get to use both left and right hands. Sadly Henry didn’t get the memo, and my third throw unexpectedly hit him in the eye. It was the least I could do to drive him to A&E and sit with him into the early hours after that.
  
  
• Henry, or Sir Henry, was a baronet. When he inherited the title, he got into a Wikipedia edit war with people who disputed his inheritance.


  
  The (now deleted) comment from Henry was:


  
  “The Seventh Baronet (Sir Henry Peter Lawrence) disagrees with these varlets who dispute his title. The Home Office, after exhaustive checks, has given him a passport under the name Sir Henry Lawrence. He is listed in Who’s Who and Debretts. Those who doubt his right to the title are hereby challenged to a duel; the format: Combat Juggling.”


  
  A little while later at a juggling event, I walked up to him with a set of juggling clubs, and challenged him to a duel for his title. Sir Henry being the good sport he was, accepted.


  
  But I decided to chicken out. I wouldn’t have wanted to deprive him of his title, and if he lost it in a duel would that mean I got it instead? I didn’t want to take the risk.
  
  
• One of my more recent, and favourite memories, was when I introduced him to my friend Sue. Sue was newly single, and trying to rebuild her life. I tried to get her out of the house and meeting new people. I took her and her teenage son to one of Henry’s infamous parties.


  
  Sue had a great time and wanted to stay as long as she possibly could, while her son just wanted to get home as soon as possible. I had to mediate, but I’m glad that Sue won.
  
  

It was a few months later that Henry and Sue took me aside, and told me that they’d been dating since then. I was so happy for them.


  
  Sue was with Henry until the moment he died. I love you both so much ❤️ 😢 ❤️