Donald Edwards

June 2nd, 1919 (England) – September 23rd, 2015 (Cotobro)

Don, as he was generally called, was an extraordinary personality. A multitalented polymath with a rare combination of being both a philosopher and a pragmatist, he defied the ironic G.B.Shaw idiom: Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. He was good at both.

He completed a Business degree at Liverpool University where he was very involved in politics and a prominent member of the climbing club. But his real vocation was professional theatre.

After the War, Don became an actor and stage director, working with many touring repertory theatres, also starring in B feature films, a promising career cut short by his obligations to the family business while he raised 7 children with his beloved wife Christine.

His out-of-hours passion was building and having acquired the arts of masonry and plumbing, his cement mixer was a fixture of family life.

He took up sailing with his usual enthusiasm and application and while studying navigation, he converted a unique, WW2, airborne Uffa Fox design lifeboat into a family cruising yacht.

A man of boundless energy, during his long life he was a voracious reader, became proficient in painting and clarinet while introducing his family to a love of mountains and the sea and in his 80s he became computer literate.

After closing the family business, he became secretary of the Heating and Ventilating Contractors Association (HVCA) transforming it into an efficient service organisation.

Upon his retirement he moved to the Mediterranean where he found his paradise in Cotobro, building part of the house in Cotobro with his own hands, forever adding bits here and there. When, after the departure of the promoter of the urbanisation in 1985, our infrastructure started to crumble, he joined a handful of other European expats to found ECCO, the Entidad de Conservación de Cotobro, and for 10 years remained an active member on the committee.

Until 2013, he never missed an AGM, where his sharp observations were often feared and always constructive. Unforgotten: his recital of a sonnet by Lord Byron extolling the moonlight. It led to the withdrawal of a motion to install street lighting in Cotobro.

He was a kind and likeable fellow with a ready wit, and was loved and respected by everyone. He was always resilient even when tragedy struck with the death from melanoma of his and Christine’s youngest son.

Having had the privilege to meet and befriend him at an early stage, I can only add on behalf of the vecinos of Cotobro: ¡muchas gracias, Don! R.I.P.

Patrick W. Herbst