Daniel Lee
“Chris and I first met at Robinson college Cambridge. His surname was next to mine in the alphabet, so we were lined up next to each other for the matriculation photo. We formed a strong friendship almost immediately, and spent much of the first term of university together.
My strongest memories of Chris are generally rugby related. His incredibly hairy chest on show in the changing room, his rousing team talks as College Captain in our third year, the superb tour to Edinburgh he organised between second and third year, and his genuine passion and desire to turn me (and the rest of the team) into the superb rugby players he was sure we were capable of growing into. I never reached those levels, but it was through no fault of his!
Between the first and second year a group of us, Chris included, travelled around Eastern Europe on an interrail ticket. We flew to Prague and started a three week trip that also took in Krakow, Bratislava and Budapest. We had a blast! Cheap beer, sight-seeing, castles, lost wallets (Chris of course), and many ridiculous stories, including an unfortunate evening when Chris's bag was stolen from under his nose. We chased down a scruffy looking chap with Chris’ bag and started our interrogations. After a bit of shouting, he accidentally pulled Chris's phone out of his inside pocket. When Chris saw the wallpaper on the phone, he immediately yelled "That's my girlfriend!", which became somewhat of a catchphrase for Chris from that day on.
During the second year at Robinson 25 of us (Chris included) moved out of the main college into 5 terraced houses on the other side of Cambridge. A great memory from our year in Romsey Terrace was the pranks we used to play. One day Chris left his room door open whilst he was at lectures, and unfortunately for him some others had spare time that day. They decided to wrap aluminium foil around everything in his room. Literally everything - his paired socks were wrapped in tin foil within his bedside table drawers - that were also wrapped in foil. When he returned, his initial anger quickly subsided and he gracefully posed for some photos in his new space-age room, before starting the work of returning it to its previous state.
During the years we were at Cambridge and for several after, Chris was a great friend that I spent many, many hours with. He was intelligent, committed, funny, polite, charming and ambitious. It seems he spent his entire life aiming for incredibly lofty goals. The world has lost a fantastic person, and I feel lucky to have been able to call him a friend.”