David Budd (OK 1971)

David was a regular attendee at Old King’s Club functions. He suffered two severe strokes and died after ten days at St. George’s Hospital in Tooting. In the final days, he had been receiving palliative care as it was obvious the two strokes he suffered were so severe that a considerable amount of irreversible damage had been done.

David (b. 09.02.1953) was the middle child of the Budd family, having an elder sister, Anita, and a twin brother, Richard. Early childhood was happily enjoyed, with his father working as a manufacturer’s agent and a stay-at-home mother looking after the family in the traditional way. Charles Roffey, his grandfather, was an addition to the household, who provided further stability at their home in Wimbledon.

Attending Rokeby preparatory school in the early ‘60s, David and Richard made some lifelong friends and enjoyed the freedom to play in the large garden their Arthur Road home offered. Kicking a football or bouncing a tennis ball in the summer, winter days were spent playing chess with his grandfather or snooker with his father, let alone the rough-and-tumble he enjoyed with his twin. With his father following Fulham football club, they made regular jaunts to Craven Cottage, yet he always favoured the more famous Chelsea and convinced his father to take him to Stamford Bridge when a home match was playing. David enjoyed most ball sports and was adept at keeping wicket or goal as the sport dictated.

Passing Common Entrance at 13, the twins moved to Kings College School, Wimbledon. They were in different classes for the first time in their lives, so their characters and school friends developed differently. David continued to enjoy ball sports alongside other distractions that befit teenagers. He enjoyed bellringing and became very competent for his age, his ability surpassing his peers at an early stage. At 16, his mother allowed him to purchase various motorbikes, including one he unfortunately wrote off in a collision with a car on Millbank. When David left school, the motorbikes were likewise left behind, and after that, he graduated to cars, the first being a Ford Escort Mexico.

David left Kings with enough qualifications to be appointed to a firm of Mayfair accountants, Milne, Gregg and Turnbull. He spent five years benefiting from the rigours of learning his profession, and his party piece was ‘casting’ (adding) seven-digit numbers from the London telephone directory, line-by-line in his head! Such was the training when calculators were not allowed in exams. After finally passing his exams and becoming chartered, he immediately resigned. He joined his school friends in forming a company focussing on restaurant and retail store refits, Du Boulay Construction, as their company secretary and finance director. This became his life-long career through the ups and downs of a growing and successful business, demonstrating his loyalty to his colleagues.

David enjoyed his work and was instrumental in encouraging others to learn and gain an understanding of areas he was interested in, whether this was in work or socially. As you can expect, he was nifty at using spreadsheets and mastered Supercalc, the forerunner of Microsoft Excel. He had a passion for astronomy and could detail constellations in both the northern and southern hemispheres as, since the turn of the century, he and his wife had an apartment in Brisbane, which they tried to visit for a month or so every February.

At home, whilst his sons were growing up, he actively supported the Kingston Royals Swimming Club as both a parent and treasurer, another example of his generosity with his spare time. As a family man, he would often be seen encouraging other members of the club at swimming galas in which his sons would compete, and then when they left home, he took up swimming himself with a professional coach to keep fit. Having lost his father through a sudden heart-attack, he was conscious of his fitness and joined a regular walking group around Richmond Park where the members would put the world to right, ending in a pint at a local pub. This group would be extended to have an annual long weekend walk, which David would research and organise.

David is survived by his wife, Juliet, and two sons, Christopher and Paul, plus four granddaughters.

/ Richard Budd (OK 1971)
August 2024