Tributes have been paid to Sir Patrick Moore by a close friend of the late astronomer, who was once ‘honoured’ by having an episode of the Sky At Night filmed in his Aylesbury Vale observatory.
Gordon Rogers met up with the monocled stargazer a couple of times a year and would regularly take friends and family down to his home in West Sussex to meet him.
Sir Patrick Moore passed away peacefully at home on Sunday. Mr Rogers, who has been asked to write his obituary for The Astronomer magazine, said: “He was the most generous, kind, loving, considerate man you could ever meet.
“He was a wonderful person. His death brings a tear to my eye.
“His generosity to other human beings is one thing that will always stay with me. If anybody wanted to ask him to do something and it was within his power he would. It could be a scientist or a school boy, it didn’t matter.
“You couldn’t get a more kinder and generous man than Sir Patrick.”
In 2002 Mr Moore presented a pre-recorded episode of The Sky At Night from Mr Rogers’ observatory in Long Crendon.
> Read the full story by Andrew Kay in this week’s Bucks Herald, out on Wednesday.