Sorry to hear Stig passed away, never knew he wasn't well.

I listened to the Bailrigg radio interview linked to ... and was smiling the whole way through, Stig always was a rare laugh - in a Jack Dee kind of way.

I was at high school with Stig, don't know if you know Ulverston at all, or if you've heard from any of his other classmates. I joined Ulverston Victoria High at the end of the first year seniors, class 1 Ag, Ma Sherwin was the form teacher. Dunno whether Ma is short for Mrs or Mother,

Ulverston's a bizarre place, I never got the hang of the local dialect. My family wasn't from the area and many of the other kids had known each other since infants, so it was a real challenge to fit in as they weren't used to new arrivals. Stig was really friendly, one of the nicest lads there, universally liked, never in any fights. One of the few who was accepting of a new arrival. We were in the same class up to the third year, he was into Culture Club and Boy George...

I still smile at the R.E. lesson we had with Beryl "Bez" Newbold - can't remember why sa it had nothing to do with religion, but I have a memory of him donning some sort of paper wig for a Boy George skit. And dossing around in German lessons with Elizabet Harrison also known as Frau Cow, happy days.

As there were 10 classes in our year - about 300 kids - we were split into sets for O'level, whilst Stig gravitated towards to arts and humanities I went towards the sciences. If memory serves we were only in O'level maths together. I think he started off sitting in the row behind me, but Mr Peters moved him to the other side of the classroom as we dossed (messed) around too much.

I recall Stig's 18th at Glaxo Social club, it was utterly packed, and bumped into him during a summer job at Glaxo, his dad must have worked there as it was kids of employees who got first dibs on the shutdown jobs.

The last time I saw him was mid 90s, bumped into him in Woolies in Ulverston - shows how long ago that was. We were the last generation before the mobile phone, pre-internet age, so I lost contact with everyone I was at school with, sadly including Stig. I moved abroad in 1999, rarely get back to the UK 1 week a year and that ends up being taken over by family visits, so I never made time to pop by. But it was great to reconnect and catch up with him on Facebook in 2007 and exchange a message or two from time to time.

And I was made up to see him get his Ph.D. - I knew how much work will have gone into it, having gone through the same process. Lovely lad, gone far too soon.