David Colaço Osorio

After 68 years together, I have lost my "Little man". David could tackle and complete any practical or technical job. Our entire house and much of our children's homes are the result of his creativity, maintenance, skills and care. Many of his skills were acquired before the age of 10, mostly by his intense observation of other experts, be they plumbers, furniture makers, paint experts or any builders. Don't ever try to knock down a wall built by David. It will be indestructible.

He had a fantastic memory. He apparently never for got anything he had ever learnt from the age of 2 onwards. He continued insisting on only reading material from which he could learn something, right to the end, Some of his firmly held beliefs were acquired in the nursery and never reconsidered.

I have lost my Google and my Encyclopaedia. David could answer almost any of my or friend's queries on science, politics and current affairs, history, art and even literature. The answer was always detailed and long. Only very recently have I been rude or brave enough to ask him to refrain from the 2 hour answer and give me the 10 minute version, as I stand by the door waiting to do a job.

David was intelligent, thoughtful, caring, loving and above all creative. He found it hard to express his emotions, but he was above all a passionate man. He was passionate about his work, not being very tolerant of colleagues who did not share his passion. He was passionate about history, art and above all every aspect of his ever extending family.

I have lost my best friend and teacher, but am fortunate that each of my children and grand children carry some part of David. He was so very proud of them all.

The facets of David that struck from a young age was his super intelligence and particularly his very kind eyes. That
is what I see whenever I think of David. My experience is that they were a true reflection of him in
how he loved and supported his family and in the loving compassion David and Martine gave to our family. There were many examples of this, the one that stand out is how they gave my brother a place of sanctuary when we were in our teens.
I am 63 now and I still know that if I knock on the door I will be met with, love, kindness and a hearty meal, with interested and interesting conversation. David and Martines kindness is always with me. XOX

I am a friend of Jess, & used to lodge with her in my early 20s & therefore knew David as Jess’s Dad. That is until I worked with him briefly helping to renovate Jess’s house; David was “retired” at this point, and needed assistance laying some oak flooring - though you got the feeling he could easily have done it all single handedly, but I’m a bit like that - so I think we got on well for that reason - he saw another get on & do it type person in me. I always found David kind, honest and amusing, and with a wicked glint in his eye - he could go from deadly serious to chuckling through the pipe smoke in seconds. It was a momentous time as I happened to be there working with him on the day of the 7/7 bombings. Of course the news - shook the world, & we sat down for a rare break to watch it unfolding. I recall us sat silently, taking in the horror, then after 20mins or so David looked over & said something like “come on then - can’t sit around all day”- as though nothing had happened. He wasn’t being callous about it - just matter of fact - and on a day when one could easily have crumbled, David had an air of stoic calm which I found very reassuring. He was a one off and will be greatly missed.

And here's one of David making fire.

I first met David 55 years ago when I joined Lewis and Duvivier as an Assistant Engineer. He was then an Associate and I worked with him and partner Frank Terrett on a range of coastal projects but mainly on the seawater intake and tailings disposal scheme for the new Boulby potash mine in NE Yorkshire. I very much enjoyed the regular site visits except for the bit David didn’t warn me about getting on and off the jack-up barge clinging to the outside of a cargo net basket dangling off a crane hook 30m above the sea!

I also helped David with two other of his sea outfall schemes involving marine surveys off Scarborough and the installation of the offshore diffuser shafts at Portobello near Brighton. To my horror, the latter involved - you guessed it – dangling off a crane hook again to board the jack-up barge. Health & Safety where were you?

After 3 years at L&D I became chartered and left to work overseas in Hong Kong for most of the next 36 years until my retirement. I didn’t have contact with David for many years until he popped up in Hong Kong to pursue a range of maritime projects there and elsewhere in SE Asia and Australia. I had a young family then and we used to invite David to join us on his Sundays off. The children readily recognised him each time we met as “there is the man in the yellow shirt” – his trademark weekend appearance. He crewed for me racing an Enterprise dinghy at my local sailing club when his advice on the sailing rules and tactics proved helpful, if sometimes controversial at the subsequent protest committee hearings. Evenings would end with earnest discussions amid clouds of pipe smoke. In return, his kindness was illustrated by him lending us his flat in Neutral Bay opposite Sydney Opera House for a family holiday.

David was always keen to get involved in the practical details of his projects and made many personal friends with the divers, surveyors and contractors on his projects. In Hong Kong this included developing a close relationship with EGS, the leading marine survey firm, especially with the late Nigel Ridley-Thomas and Dick Hale. In his tribute, Dick went on to say that “Considering that Hong Kong’s seawater quality is now so much better than during the 1980s, it is clear to this survey team that David played an important role in that improvement.”

David was an exceptionally gifted man who made a lasting impression on those he met. He left the world a better place and I feel privileged to have known him.

I've got so many happy memories of trips with Grandpa - many of which must have been formative, in retrospect! I think I was maybe around ten when we drove down to Portsmouth to visit HMS Victory and HMS Warrior. It was completely natural that Grandpa could answer any of my questions about these ships in unlimited depth. I also remember him giving me a large book (about torso size at the time) - Nelson and the Age of Fighting Sail, in an edition probably as old as my dad - which featured many beautiful paintings. These included the one below, of Nelson fighting a polar bear. This particular image luckily proved less formative.

His knowledge could seem limitless, but even when I started to leave its scope I could feel his support and interest from afar, e.g. receiving another book from him, Edward Whymper's Scrambles Amongst the Alps, after I'd spent a month in the summer climbing. I deeply appreciated his and Nana’s support for my education and career. Saved in my email history is a long string of emails covering advice, general information on cement and gearboxes, and excellent anecdotes. Some of the best of these, including Grandpa being handed the controls of a De Havilland Vampire fighter jet (he was told “I shouldn’t go so low, old man” by the pilot – only then realizing that he was had got down to 300ft) and official 1950s advice on wearing pyjamas in the Royal Navy (strictly forbidden), I have gleefully recounted to work colleagues at any opportunity.

I have very fond memories of other trips and visits including Brighton Marina, Berlin (!!!), Boulby potash mine, the Sunderland air museum, a motocross training school (tactfully walking away when the clutch proved hard to master), and woodworking in the famous shed. His love took many forms, and I will treasure the coffee table he built to my exacting specifications for a very long time. My tentative and brief forays into riding motorcycles have been very cautious, in part due to some of his more hair-raising memories of crashing his Velocette LE and other motorcycles (not often, but memorably). We also discovered only recently that both he and I share an inability to do naval drill to any level of precision.

I could keep going, but I'll leave it at that for now. I've enjoyed reminiscing very much, and I've many more lovely memories to look back on of a wonderful grandfather who led such an exciting, varied, talented, and productive life.

P.S. I've ran on a bit more than I meant to and still have not reached even one third of the length of the excellent cement primer that he sent me before my work experience at a cement plant!

I visited the Osorios over winter break, spending 12/24/25 through 1/2/26 in London. While there, I jotted down some of David and Martine’s reminiscences.

The day after Christmas, David and I were commiserating over our degenerating eyesight. He said that when he joined the Navy in 1951 after University he was a deck officer and could pick out night-time navigation lights ten minutes before anyone else. He did mention that a 15-minute re-adjustment period was required after a cigarette break before your eyes were considered reliable again. Twenty years later he sailed in a friend’s boat up the Belgian coast to Amsterdam, which was familiar territory to him. You had to sail seven to nine miles off the coast because of sand bars, and this time, others could pick out the navigation lights ten minutes before he could. Later on, he banned drawings on millimeter graph paper at work because he could no longer count the lines.

On the 29th I asked David why he chose to join the Navy and why he decided to become an engineer. He said that in those days men had two years compulsory military service. He chose the Navy because of his interest in boats. As for engineering, he said he was inspired from a very young age reading about Cecil Rhodes’ dream of a Cape to Cairo railway project. Another source of inspiration was the Tennessee Valley Authority hydraulics project. I appreciated this nod to a US engineering endeavor.

I also asked him about the origin of the Osorio name, and he said the Osorios were among the Jews originally from Portugal and/or Spain who kept their heads down from 1492 to the 1600’s, and then went to Amsterdam. Eventually the business opportunities looked better in London, and they crossed the Channel. His paternal grandmother’s family was originally from Vienna and left after the Anschluss.

As a child, I was intimidated by Martine, and even more so by David, who did not have much time for silly American children. But as I’ve grown older, seeing them every nine years or so, our short times together and especially our conversations have enriched my life. David was unusually tolerant of my 6-year-old daughter Ash (Sarah at the time) when we visited years ago, even taking her into his workshop and letting her make a few small wooden things. I will miss him, and send warm hugs to his family and friends.

Much love, Gwen

A photo from the cockpit of "Greylag" of the view seen by David on his last sail out of Newhaven..in 2022. Lovely memories.

When I first came to Adelaide Road forty years ago, as Tom's latest squeeze, the welcome from David and Martine couldn't have been warmer. In the way of new girlfriends, I offered fulsome praise of the many ingenious bookshelves about the place, to which David said briskly: "Bookshelves very straightforward." When I revealed my inability to build anything at all, he fixed me with a piercing look and said:"Tom is a good choice then."

I always found it very rewarding to ask David's advice and slowly added to my working knowledge of drains, European history, Hong Kong architecture and the omnivorousness of one year olds. We enjoyed sharing a mutual and vehement mistrust of margarine. I was startled to watch him swim an idiosyncratic sidestroke in the pool of the Eastern and Oriental in Penang and even more startled to discover how strongly he felt about aquilegias ("no place for them in a civilised garden"). His robust general approach to the under twos has been passed on to Tom, who often surprises parents with just how much rough and tumble a baby can tolerate.

Many of David's favourite adjectives have been absorbed into the family lexicon, in particular catastrophic, rigorous and implausible. And never forget the essential "WAH", now routinely applied to surprising food combinations, sibling misdeeds and unexpected projectiles.

I shall miss his strong opinions on trivial matters and his conversational tangents and his extreme curiosity applied to the material world and his always timely suggestions of sticky buns. There was nothing more rewarding than saying something that made him laugh his short but very loud laugh.

Here is a photo of a quiet moment during Christmas at Rachel's in 2013, when I happened upon David enjoying quality time with some grandchild's discarded present.

When we lived in Teddington I knew Martine well but I was a little in awe and nervous of David and his highly active brain and charged intelligent presence. Michael more at ease, always stimulated by his company, sharing his interest in engineering and carpentry. An early memory is of these two putting up a home crafted dresser in our kitchen.

My fondest and most vivid memories of David are from the past 20 years, after we moved to the Ribble Valley. During this period we joined David and Martine on many adventurous holidays exploring France, Italy and the Balkans. Back seat passengers in their big car, David driving barefoot, the comforting smell of his pipe, there was never a dull moment. It was a happy partnership with David and Michael sharing their mutual interests while Martine and I , appreciating their enthusiasms, could also talk between ourselves.

I had always been aware of David’s wide range of knowledge but during these travels we got to know the softer side to his character and I came to see him as a considerate and true friend.

They often visited us en route to Tom and family in Yorkshire. Invariably David would go home with yet another big chunk of hardwood carefully chosen from our local wood yard. He stayed with us last July, sadly without the energy to seek out more logs but his indomitable spirit still rose to the challenge of diagnosing a problem with their controversial electric car. Our last sight and memory, so very “David”.

Dawid may be gone, but he will always be with us - in memory, in spirit, in heart.

When some twenty years ago I was looking, with growing despondency, for a home in Twickenham to downsize into, David made me a pretty wild offer: he would plan and manage - as it turned out almost minute by minute - the replacement of my garage with a two-storey home to fit my needs, complete with loft and space for a car. I don't think either David or I dreamt that I would now be sharing the house with four lodgers.
There were times when I think Martine would have happily wrung my neck for my lack of appreciation of David's mental and physical exhaustion. But, throughout, he never once lost his temper with me, and now the house stands, a proud and happy tribute to David, who made many things after 77a, but maybe nothing demanding a greater multiplicity of his engineering skills than 77a.

David was a big influence on me, especially in developing an interest in engineering and sailing as a pastime – though pipe smoking came from my grandfather! We were very lucky to have David and Martine as our next door neighbours in Adelaide Road from when I was about seven years old. They were always very supportive, especially to us and our mother Peggy after our father Bernard died in the mid-60s. It is very sad to think David is not with us anymore having been part of my and my family’s life for the last 65 years. We will all miss him.
Kevin McG

Brother David

David was about 5 years older than me which was a huge gap when I was under 10.
He was away at school and I don’t remember him particularly during holidays as he was probably away sailing with Nicky Macgregor or making the cadet in Poole. Looking through my photos I find he was obviously around quite a lot a lot of the time, but actual memories elude me.
He did however teach me all my carpentry skills, but the problem was he was left handed and it wasn’t until many years later I realised the work bench we made had the vice at the wrong end and I learnt to plane left handed or from the wrong end of the bench. We also made a vast leather topped writing desk from old mahogany packing crates. The wood was rubbish and had to be cross planed and sanded by hand (no power tools). All his life he always assumed I knew more than I did which made learning from him a challenge whether it was woodwork or calculus.

Nick

Remembering David’s 90th birthday party at Teddington, 11th May 2024.