Fred ran the research part of the optical test lab at Rank Taylor Hobson in Leicester. I was a young student trainee at that time and I was always trying to find people who could tell me something proper about what we were all doing. Then I met Fred, and he was a real friend and let me play with the instruments in his lab ad would explain about his latest difficulty. The day I met him I think it was some aspheric that had gone wrong in some special custom lens. He and a friend of his, Mike Salter became my mentors, they were happy to answer my stupid questions. I didn't meet Fred for many years after that until in the 1990s I started coming to SPIE conferences. Imagine my pleasure in seeing Fred's jolly smile again after all those years. After that we used to have long telephone conversations swapping anecdotes. One he told that I really smiled at. It seems that the day he got his degree results from Leicester University he had a haircut, and while he was waiting he read an advertisement in the Leicester Mercury saying that Rank Taylor Hobson wanted a optical laboratory person. Armed with his new haircut he went straight round to the factory and was interviewed there by, I think it was Gordon Cook, the chief optical designer, and started on the next Monday. Thank goodness for newspapers in barber's shops! Sadly, the day that Fred died, we performed the funeral for his good friend Mike Salter. Two great international optical engineers have passed on. Jonathan Maxwell, Cooke Optics, Leicester