From Christopher Tuite

My name is Christopher Tuite and I went to Hampstead School with Max and played in the same North Paddington football team for many years. My memories are of a genuine and kind individual. He always treated people as he found them and never got involved in the adolescent politics that can sometimes make school so difficult. He was interested in everybody and never had a bad word to say about anybody.

He made break times a pleasure. His enthusiasm for football (we would play at every opportunity even if it was for a few seconds with bits of paper in the classroom) was only matched by his enthusiasm for life and for his friends. It was a pleasure to play in the same team as him. He was always a team player (despite his undoubted individual ability) and I will always remember him embarrassing many a full back and thanking my lucky stars he was playing for us! Like all of us who played at that time we were a tight knit group who would have run through a brick wall for each other and so to lose him in such circumstances hurts so much more.

It was a measure of the man and the esteem in which he was held how many people turned out to his memorial football match at Queens Park. I remember coming down there on many a day from West Hampstead, wondering if it was worth making the trip to play as the game may have fizzled out by the time we had walked down or bunked the train fare and the deciding factor was always knowing Max would be playing until night fell or he dropped from exhaustion.

In recent years the call of University and Careers had meant our paths had crossed less and less and I was restricted to seeing him and his crew at Christmas drinks or special events (birthdays etc) but I was always struck how much he hadn’t changed, how he retained his lust for life, his popularity and above all his warmth and his decency.

I am gutted we have lost him as he was just getting going and spreading his happiness further afield.

To his family, Rosie, Louis, Issac, Owen, Dash and all those who loved him I am truly truly sorry. I know my pain will never match yours but take solace in the fact that Max touched us all and my life was better because of it.

Rest in Peace Friend.