His legacy for me was as a role model for reinventing yourself at turning points of life, for keeping active and curious, for ageing gracefully and for living a full life, every day at a time.

Don't ask the gods what time you've got

They may well answer ‘not a lot’

So seize the day, the here, the now

And kiss the lips, caress the brow

Enjoy the fruits of autumn days

Ripeness is all, the poet says

The clock is ticking as we speak

And who knows where you'll be next week.

These words hang in our hall, weaving their way through a framed print. The words (and spirit) are from Brian Palmer, who died in December 2025, after a life lived to the full, just as his verse suggests. It has been a privilege to share some of that journey with him.

In 1975, I sat at a table in what we grandly called the morning room in our house in Northwood. I was looking for my next job; I wrote a letter to Brian Palmer, who I’d read about in ‘Campaign’, an innovatory ad man and a Director of Youngs Brewery. The combination of beer and advertising that he represented sounded very attractive. Brian had the good sense not to take me on, but I'm sure, even though I don't have a copy, I received a courteous and helpful reply.

Around 10 years later, I was working for Nestle and had the good fortune to find Brian again. He was running New Solutions, a business development agency, that worked for Nestle across a number of product groups. Brian was there running the show, offering wise advice and keeping good relations running between the company and his agency. Typically he was bright, lively, reassuring, humorous, thinking outside the box, a refreshing voice from outside of major multinational companies. Bedfordbury in Covent Garden, where the agency was based, was a fount of creativity and new ideas

Over time the association became personal as well as professional, as Brian invited me and my wife to join him and his wife Brenda at cultural events - at the theatre, musicals, dinner tables, and Glyndebourne where he educated me on the etiquette and opera. It felt very privileged to be walking the lawns of Glyndebourne, champagne in hand, with such a learned host and hostess.

Contact continued through lunches on a regular basis while I was at Nestle and after I left to pursue a Portfolio Career.

Most lunches were at Mon Plaisir, starting with a Kir and finishing with an espresso coffee ( double for him, single for me ). Between those drinks there would be a flow of ideas, creative insights advice and bonhomie; we were allowed to talk about just one grandchild and one ailment (a lesson Brian told me from his ROMEO lunches) and then all the other subjects : family which Brian remembered extremely well, marketing, advertising, politics, films, theatre, the universe and quantum mechanics. Through it all he was engaged, bright, wise, experienced, curious with the mind of a man many decades his junior. He certainly made me envious of his memory and his understanding of current news even though I was 20 years younger. One of the last discussions we had in autumn 2025 was around the effect of AI on advertising.

In the earlier lunches, one of the first books we talked about was Charles Handy's ‘Being 50 in the 80s’ which Brian had been inspired by in those 80s; I was so delighted to give him a signed copy once I had met Charles Handy and also to give him in summer 2025 a copy of Charles Handy's last book ‘The view from the 90s’; Brian was 95 by then.

When I co-wrote a book about portfolio careers, Brian was one of the first I asked to write a piece about his experience, and indeed his ‘portfolio journey’ is the first entry in the book. This extract takes us from his leaving the corporate world of advertising to starting his own business and reinventing himself as an artist, and (although he doesn’t mention it) to being an exhibitor at the RA.

Seven exciting years on,  New  Solutions was sufficiently successful that I was able to pass it on to our management over time, on condition that they should let me gradually phase out, go to Art School properly on Mondays and Tuesdays, and work towards a Degree. It took another seven years. I graduated in June '98, and have a new main career as an artist, with a couple of business and local interests for variety. (I'm glad I don't have to live on my art earnings though.)

Typically of Brian, he enjoyed being one of the students (the eldest one!) and wanted to be commercial and to be able to appeal to people, rather than just do it as a pastime.

His obituaries in the national press made much of the fact that the year he died was the 70^th anniversary of the first ITV advertisement ever shown, one for SR  toothpaste, written and directed by Brian in 1955.

His legacy for me was as a role model for reinventing yourself at turning points of life, for keeping active and curious, for ageing gracefully and for living a full life, every day at a time.

His recipe for enjoying his days was Someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to

Here’s another of the many irrepressible verses Brian penned :

If you really want to travel - Do it now.

Or life's mysteries to unravel - Do it now.

Cut the knots and start creating.

You can't keep procrastinating.

FOR THE MEN IN BLACK ARE WAITING - DO IT NOW.

He did it. Thanks Brian, it’s been a pleasure and privilege to know you.