Walt Whitman wrote “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself...I am large…I contain multitudes…” So was Anthony…so did he…

For many of us Anthony was a creature of stupendous extremes. His appetites weren't large, they tended to the Gargantuan - for food, drink, books, friends, joy, sadness, Amazon shopping, solitude, companionship,immensity, emptiness. And he shared his appetites with a generosity as bold as it was total - an experience that could leave the merely human among us breathless sometimes, shattered now and again, enhanced and uplifted often.

But ‘appetite’ doesn't say it properly - his attributes were those of a life-lusting extra-terrestrial, whose intellectual curiosity, thirst for knowledge and experience, capacity for wonder, were those of an explorer, a poet, a pilgrim…He was in a hurry (as extraterrestrials tend to be of course, when they’re not sure how much time they've got in this dimension)

We christened him the Yeti. Nelly looked up the word the other day, and we found that it’s from the Tibetan and that it fuses the concepts of the power of Rock and Bear. Immediately we thought of Anthony and Marie-Laure’s house built on vast boulders in Koh Samui, up an insane mountain so steep that cars slide off it in the rain. And then thinking of Anthony himself, his size, his width and breadth, the goggle eyes he rolled like a Tibetan Temple Lion for the children, his ears to hear you with, the gargle of his voice, and yet the beauty of his features - 'Yeti’
seemed appropriate. And as Johnny says - the lands of the Yeti, the Himalayas,
were his point of reference; the steppes, mountains, deserts, waterways, and
pastures of Central Asia, were his hunting grounds and spiritual home.

He was a larger-than-life friend, ally, partner in crime. He had a mind to concoct dangerous escapades, but he was much else besides; I remember when the children were small, that they had to lie on the floor to see him properly and not become dizzy.

I remember him years ago telling us all to pack because we had to get
out of London, and away from the Nuclear threat; that the Bothy awaited the
chosen ones. I remember that track to his house in Thailand, under a canopy of
blazing stars, the furious altercations with their maid from hell, and the
quality of the man’s attentions, who'd just been told that there was nothing
more that could be done for him. I remember his heaving laughter as we stood
wobbling on a table together in our garden a few weeks ago, well oiled with
grass (of the most concentrated nature) to pick Mimosa blossoms for
Marie-Laure. I remember him ringing at 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning a bit later,
to say that he had to see me, and could I please bring the wolf (our dog Seeka)
to the Hospice. I remember the way she padded up to him, stood and watched, let
him stroke her, before curling on the floor at his feet, and he muttering that
a promise had been kept.

I think of Anthony as a complete man, as a fulfilled human being. This was to do with the way he engaged with life, the way he took and gave, the qualities he brought to bear - rigour, curiosity, enthusiasm, and gentleness - the hard road he walked to acquire detachment, and finally the extraordinary love and care with which he was
gifted by others… And he helped many people, and when he couldn't, he helped
others to help them! And around him danced the lot of us - the monks, and the scholars, and hippies, and the treasure dealers, and visionaries, writers, artists, hooligans and friends. There were other critical parts of course; the Tibetan and Himalayan Studies Programme at Oxford, and of course the extraordinary, innovative, brave, beautiful books he made. So large was he, in fact, that there were two of them, with Michael - his equally large twin, alter-ego, shade and light-bearer. But above all, I think, for the creature himself, for Anthony, what made him operational, and that which most enriched, enhanced his spirit and capacity, was his own family…. I can’t imagine him without Marie-Laure by his side…without Roddy and Arabella, without the grandkids he adored.

Anthony nurtured and fused the different facets of his existence together, with an energy that was manic, but full of skill; he bound and bred those disparate particles into his being! And the strength that he drew from this unlikely wholeness kept him sane (or as sane as a Yeti can be) both through the difficult moments (which were not his alone), as well as in the gloriously, wondrously, easier ones!

And he gave us all a sense that we too were part of his Caravan of Souls….

by Adam Munthe, October 21st 2015