Alan Davidson 1960-2018

"I first met Alan in the mid 1990s when I was at London First and we began to champion London as “the Millennium city”. It was his company’s CGIs which painted a picture of the capital that words simply couldn’t capture and this paved the way for many superb National Lottery funded projects which changed the face of London for the good.

We then worked together for Godfrey Bradman, Elliot Bernerd, Jack Jacobs and Nigel Hugill on Paddington Basin devising the early branding and messaging for that major regeneration scheme. It was whilst working with him on this project that the concept for London Communications Agency was formulated in my head – a specialist PR company focused on the capital and its built environment.

I vividly recall in 1999 standing with him on the terrace of the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank in the spring sunshine overlooking the Thames pitching the idea to him. He was so enthusiastic and encouraging and delighted to accept my invitation to become a non-executive director there  and then – even before I had finished writing the first business plan!

This was a role he delivered with much wise counsel until 2016, when the effects of MND became too much for him to attend meetings. Even then he asked me to send the minutes of each meeting to him, which I did right up until he died. He always dropped me a note to comment on our progress.

Back in 1999 in return for my invitation, he asked me to be a non-executive director of his already successful company, a role I performed for many years too. This generosity of spirit was most felt by me when I wandered into the HD offices in November 1999, which had been transformed into a night club for their (in)famous annual party. As I met many of the great and the good from the world of architecture and development, they were impressed that I was a non-executive of HD and only vaguely interested that I happened to have set up a PR company!

And if that wasn’t enough, he kindly offered us office space and LCA was launched from Conduit Place in Paddington and grew rapidly until we had to move to larger offices in 2007.

Over the years he became far more than a business colleague. He was a close friend of all the shareholders at LCA and very close to my wife, Lisa, and daughters Anya and Imogen. They adopted him as an unofficial uncle as we spent many happy days at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in his beloved Scotland. To mark his marriage to Elaine in 2016, we sponsored a seat in the Traverse Theatre, which is now a memory to a wonderful man and great pioneer in the field of architectural visualisation.

On behalf of myself, Jonny Popper, Jane Groom, Chris Madel and all our team at LCA, our thoughts are with his sister, Jane Craik and her family, and Alan’s colleagues at HD and his wide circle of friends.”