Remembering David Stanley
Dear fellow Pasture for Life members,
Earlier this week, we heard the tragic news that Dave Stanley, former Pasture for Life board member, had a fatal heart attack last Friday (17 th March). I doubt there will be many of you who have not heard of, or come across, Dave, either by reading his contributions to the forum or having had dealings and conversations with him. Some of you, like me, worked very closely with him as we built the PFLA, as we knew it then, and will have counted him as a very good friend and colleague.
Dave was an enormous character, full of wisdom and with laser-like focus on the problem at hand and we are indebted to him in helping Pasture for Life get to where it is now. Given Dave is well known to so many of you, we didn’t feel it was right to have just one person say something about him so we have set up a document for those of you who knew him to share your reflections. We will then share this with his family. You can access it here.
Dave’s funeral will be held on Friday 14 th April at 3pm at Grimley Church, WR2 6LX. Everyone is very welcome but the family would like to know numbers, so we have included a tick box on the form above for you to indicate that you would like to go.
Dave and I became Directors of Pasture for Life at the same time, or near enough, as memories get hazy. I remember first meeting the fighter pilot come environmentalist come farmer at the Quaker Meeting House in Swindon. We met there for the early board meetings of Pasture for Life because it was central for most people. He was part of what made being part of Pasture for Life so enticing – thinking out of the box, not being afraid to voice your own views but also listening so carefully to the views of others. He was far more radical than I was but, along with a small tight knit group of individuals, we were all focussed on the need to get Pasture for Life farming out into the mainstream. For seven years I worked with Dave and in those early years we faced many challenges – funding, focus and how do we get our messages out there. At times I felt Dave could be random, wide of the beam and putting out views that challenged so many people. Yet he was invariably right and it was perhaps just a matter of working out how to communicate those views to the mainstream. For those of us who were there at beginning (or in Dave and my case, nearly at the beginning) we can look back on all that and think how amazing it is that we are where we are now, as none of it was that easy.
From a totally personal point of view, Dave was the most wonderful friend to have. We had tough times and times when we really had to pull out all the stops to get ourselves heard. I remember one occasion when he drove from Worcestershire to Kent to give the case for Pasture for Life to a group of people we really wanted to influence. When we lost our way, Dave was there, fighting to find it and ensure we moved forward. He was a true friend and comrade in arms. He will be missed enormously but let’s celebrate his immense contribution to our movement and to being up for standing up for things that you believe in.
In the absence of being able to tell Dave what a brilliant and amazing guy he was please send us your memories so we can make sure his family really understands his enormous contribution to Pasture for Life.
Fidelity Weston Honorary Vice President
