Richard Evans – ColA 45-53

Submitted by Magdalen Evans, first cousin once removed.

Richard was born in Hampstead in 1935, the younger of two sons of Corris Evans, by his second wife Ursula, née Kendall.  The Evans’s come from a long-line of Welsh teachers and administrators and my grandfather Charles Evans was the older brother of Corris, whose daughter Caroline is still alive, in Suffolk and on whose behalf I submit this biography.

The link with North Wales remained fairly strong but like many intrepid Welshmen, other Evans’s further back emigrated to the USA, as did Richard and Caroline’s beloved older ½ brother David Dillon Evans (1921-2004), who continued his career as an actor in New York.

Richard’s and Caroline’s early childhood in Godalming was marred by the early loss of their father in 1943, so their mother Ursula had her work cut out bringing up the two children on her own and running two flower businesses as well, one of which, Marley’s, is still going strong.  Corris had been working hard as the solicitor for the RAC and navigating the organisation through the tough times of the War.   Fortunately HER parents were still alive and they helped, although Guy Kendall had been busy teaching at Charterhouse and then becoming Headmaster of UCS school in Hampstead (1916-36).  Richard told me recently he had very clear memories of walking up through the Heath to meet his grandfather after he retired, and he kept a good eye on them both, and affectionately called Caro ‘Crocus’.

After school at Christ’s Hospital  (Coleridge House) between 1945 and ‘53, and four years of National Service, some of which was served in Germany,  Richard began his career in 1957 at a pharmaceutical company, Aspro Nicholas of Slough.  Then he joined the AA- not the Architectural Association, for which our father worked, nor Alcoholics Anonymous – but the Automobile Association, perhaps thanks to his father’s old motoring connections.  The most ironic aspect of this career switch was that he was soon given life membership:  he never had any INTENTION of owning a car himself.  Undaunted by logistics of train timetables and local buses plus the risk of delays and cancellations he wouldn’t think twice about taking several cross-country routes for a Victorian Society tour or even a lecture.   After 16 years at the AA he entered the civil service, firstly at the Dept. of the Environment then Dept. of Trade and finally from 1980 at HM Treasury for which he received the OBE in 1995 for his work as their Senior Press Officer.   The Times reported on his retirement party, noting that he had served five Chancellors, ten chief Secretaries and nine Financial Secretaries: ‘Evans may be leaving Whitehall, but forever and a day he will be remembered for his Yes Minister style in fielding awkward questions’. (City Diary 28 July 1995)

The following year Richard helped invigilate a 70^th birthday retrospective exhibition for his newly acquired brother-in-law, the photographer Mark Fiennes at the Menier Gallery on the South Bank.   He was the veritable Jules Verne of the home counties.  He loved cycling and his neighbours note that he would set off from his house in Haslemere, walking distance from its railway station, with boundless energy going off on adventures, always with a rucksack on his back.  In 2011 he became a member of the newly formed Church of the Most Precious Blood – the Ordinariate parish near Borough Market, a reason to travel up to London weekly too.

Richard was an inaugural member of Haslemere Ramblers, becoming Chair in 2003.  He edited their Newsletter and from 2004 he represented Godalming and Haslemere, created through a merger in 1976, in the campaign for the South Downs to become a National Park, an important step to preserve that beautiful landscape.  He acted as footpath secretary for many West Sussex parishes, and was until recently an active member of the Path Maintenance work parties, as everyone knows an important and sometimes exhausting job.  His filing cabinets in his Surrey garage are filled with guidebooks, leaflets, and articles cut-out of magazines.  He had a remarkable library including every single Pevsner, and a spare room dedicated completely to his valuable collection of Ordnance Survey maps.  Like many sensible Englishmen he wasn’t really bothered with foreign travel and I don’t think he particularly liked gardens, surprising in a way considering his mother’s and his sister’s professions. He might have been what’s called a natural socialist – exemplified not just by his love of public transport. It is of note that he liked visiting houses that everyone could enjoy, not just those owned by aristocrats and plutocrats, while the Youth Hostel Association, the Open Spaces Society, the Woodland Trust and the Greater London Fund for the Blind are amongst the many charities he has mentioned in the papers he leaves behind, as well as of course his beloved old School.