Home	Max Nicholson Letter from Sir Martin Holdgate

Like many of those who knew and worked with your father over some forty years, I find it hard to believe that he has gone! But I know that this last year was a sad and difficult one for him, and no doubt all of you, and I write to convey my sympathy with you and your brothers because of that and especially because of his passing. One of Max's outstanding qualities was the fertility of his mind, and I think he knew he was fortunate that this endured to the end of what I have heard him describe as "this ridiculously long life" But I don't think he really found it ridiculous - rather in the past few years when I was involved in the New Renaissance Group, he seemed as frustrated as ever in the failure of society to do the things that seemed to him obvious essentials. In the days I knew him first, wen he was Director General of the Nature Conservancy, he was full of vision and creative thinking, advanced through a powerful and at times acerbic advocacy, and those attributes did not desert him. No doubt they had been attributes years earlier when he started PEP. You, the family, will obviously miss Max enormously, for indeed a giant has departed. You will have a vast diversity of memories, and I susspect they will take a long time to sift - for he struck most of us as both constant in his central vision and commitment, and mercurial in the way he expressed it. While at the moment, you will all, of course, feel a great sense of loss (however well prepared you were) I am sure you will also feel pride in all that he did, over so many years, for so many. I do hope that some kind of memorial volume will appear in due course Meanwhile, as one who has much to thank Max for, may I again assure you of my deep sympathy in his loss Martin Holdgate              4th May 2003