I met with Roger in 1988 when I was a visiting researcher at Loughborough University. He was the Lab technician and one of the doctoral students. He was my best friend during my term in Loughborough. We ran almost every day in the beautiful countryside of Loughborough and participated in the countryside running events on weekends. He was the person who always helped me in every respect related to Lab, research duties, and social life on the Campus and in Loughborough town. He was also one of the participants of my study titled “The effect of pacing strategy upon 5 km race performance”. He was a very typical English Gentleman to everybody. Our friendship continued after I finished my work in Loughborough. In this time period, since there was no Internet, we were corresponding by traditional letters sent by regular post. He was the person who always liked to write long letters and sent me his diary notes on his mountain climbing and camping in England and other countries. He was a person who liked to be in nature. Even after the internet has entered our lives, he kept on writing classic letters and sending them by regular mail. He also did not stop sending New Year Cards.

He visited me twice in Turkey in 1993 and 2004. On his first visit, he cycled all Marmara and Aegean costs. On the second visit, we visited the east black sea region of Turkey and climbed Kaçkar mountain, 3937 m. When we were driving by a pickup truck to a small village near Kaçkar, we saw two mountaineers from Czech Republic walking with heavy backpacks and stopped to invite them to the truck. By chance, 2 Czech mountaineers asked Roger, “Do you speak English,” and he replied with all his kindness, “Yes, fluently.” We all laughed for this extreme chance; two Czechs found an English person on the road in Turkey and asked, “Do you speak English” to an English man.

When I decided to publish a free electronic journal at the end of 2001, I shared all my thoughts about the journal with him. He strongly supported and helped me at the journal’s beginning and later as an editor. He did marvelous work for the journal, so I am also grateful for his support in making the journal what it is today. I had many pleasant memories as a work partner and as a friend with Roger. When I learned that he had passed away, I felt very deep sadness and remembered our lovely memories.

I wish him peace in his new place.

Yours sincerely,

Hakan Gur, MD, PhD

Editor-in-chief