Dear Family Price dear friends

Kalil Gibran in the "Prophet" write the following about Friendship :

"when you part from your friend you grieve not; For that which you most love in him may be clearer in his absence , as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. Let there be no purpose in friendship save for the deepening of the spirit"

I met Ashley in Hampstead Garden Synagogue, in the mid 1950's, the start of a friendship which lasted almost 70years. After my National Service we met again at Oxford in 1959. He was a medic and I, a chemist at different colleges ,we came together also with Ashley's close medic friend Ian Wolf, at the Jewish Society on Friday nights. We also met socially as the photographs attest.

Our next major coming together was 1956-7 when we were both in London. unlike the owl and the pussycat, we went to sea not in a pea-green boat but in a second hand GP14 sailing dinghy which we towed behind Ashley's Morris Minor estate car . After some refurbishment when I managed to injure Ashley's big toe, the boat was moved down to Bosham. Ashley very quickly became a competant skipper.I, as an incompetant crew member was apparently caught combing my hair during a gale force wind ! This was recounted by Ashley on a number of occasions to the great amusment of all present.Around this time, in another event in which I was not involved, Ashley managed to fall off a balcony at the Chichester Tennis Club injuring himself.

In May 1967 I was transferred by then employers to Switzerland never to return. Ashley was my best man at my wedding in Zürich in 1974. The marriage did not stand the test of time but the frienship flourished.

Ashley's, winning personality jovial masked a highly competent and committed personal life. In his usual self-effacing manner he once said to me and I quote " I know quite a lot about a very small part of the human anatomy". This was put to life-saving use when my mother, who was still living in Leicester at the time, was diagnosed with stomach cancer in the late 1980's. Ashley immediately checked all the pathology and immediately advised on the procedure to follow.I remember him telling me that he got the chosen surgeon out of his bath at his mother's home in the country during the weekend. A couple of days of days later, the said surgeon carried out a total gastrectomy on my mother at the London Clinic. She went on to live for another 25 years. My family's gratitude cannot be adequately expressed.

Ashley was the "star performer" at my 50th,70th and more recently 80th birthday parties.I was particularly grateful that not withstanding his impaired mobility, he was present at the Oxford and Cambridge Club.

Sadly in recent years his deteriorating health and my absence abroad, severly reduced the opportunities for meeting. Our frquent phone always started with what Ashley called a brief"organ recital". For me, it goes almost without saying ,how much I valued his friendship.Ashley was a real "Mensch". I will miss him greatly as I am sure will his family and many friends. To his family,my sincerest and heartfelt condolences.

In conclusion to quote Cole Porter

"Its friendship ,friendship,

Just a perfect blendship,

When other friendships have been forgot

Ours will still be it"

May his memory be for a blessing.