The death of Harrogate historian Malcolm Neesam this week prompted a German friend of his, Benedict Hess, to contact us about their 50-year friendship. Here are his words.

With great sadness, I learned this week about Malcolm’s death. It’s exactly 50 years this summer since he paid his first visit to Munich.

His and my parents became friends some years earlier when they met by chance on holiday in Italy and my dad came up with the idea of Malcolm coming to Munich to stay with us for a couple if weeks.

Although my brother and I were considerably younger than Malcolm — he was 26, my brother was 10 and I was only eight — we were fascinated by this young man who spoke good German, and we became lifelong friends.

Over the next decades, we saw each other on several occasions, either in Harrogate or Munich.

Benedict (left) and Malcolm (third left) with friends in Munich in 1983: Pic by Benedict Hess

My grandparents owned a little holiday home on the Côte d’Azur, where my family spent many happy summers in the seventies and eighties, and Malcolm joined us there.

In retrospect, I always thought that Malcolm was a little suspicious of all those French people there, although he really admired the beautiful landscape. He was a Yorkshireman through and through, as he also was a true Englishman, both of which I truly admired.

I remember one day marvelling over a wooden model of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the V&A Museum, I believe. When I said that much of its architecture reminded me of classic Italian buildings, his response was rather indignant, he said: “We’re in the north. Who needs Italy?” It was then and there that I realised how proud Malcolm was of Great Britain’s rich history.

1972 Olympics in Munich

When he first came to Munich in the summer of 1972, the city was right in the middle of the Olympic Games. I remember us three, Malcolm, Daniel and myself, strolling through the city and the Olympic Park for hours and days on end. The sun shone every day and though I was only eight at the time, I clearly saw and felt that those days were very, very special.

But I also remember clearly those fateful hours when terrorists assaulted Israel’s Olympic team. My parents, Malcolm, Daniel and I were glued to the TV until late on September 5. And then two helicopters, flying very low, passed over our house on the way to Fürstenfeldbruck airfield, where, as the world was about to learn, everything ended in total disaster. Terrible memories and I know that Malcom also never forgot.

In 1988, as a young adult, I decided to go to England alone, after we went there as a family in the jubilee spring of 1977 (I have many happy memories from our stays in London and Harrogate from that). Malcolm and I agreed to meet in London for a few days before traveling to Harrogate.

Malcolm in London in 1988. Pic by Benedict Hess

He asked me if there was anything in particular I would like to do and I said that I really would like to see a musical. And we went to a musical, 42nd Street, starring a barely 19-year-old Catherine Zeta Jones in the lead. But that was not all, because Malcolm also purchased tickets for the Proms, for A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Regent’s Park and for a comedy at The Swan Theatre in Stratford- upon-Avon. Malcolm was a generous man, a thoughtful and kind man who did everything to make you feel welcome and comfortable.

The year before last, we resumed the habit of telephoning and emailing regularly again and that was how I learned about his illness. And, although I knew, I am in a state of shock right now. My thoughts are with Malcolm and also with Tom and Jamie, his nephews.

I didn’t mean to write so much but I simply got carried away by so many fond memories of a man I knew for 50 years and who is now gone forever. But not in the minds of so many people who will always remember him.

It is very consoling to know that Malcolm Neesam was widely loved and regarded and that he will never be forgotten in Harrogate. Never ever. Neither will he be here in Munich. He will be sorely missed. And always be remembered with the deepest affection.

Read more:

• Tributes paid to ‘Mr Harrogate’ Malcolm Neesam
• Malcolm Neesam History: Harrogate’s thriving working men’s clubs

Harrogate historian Malcolm Neesam, who wrote some of the most loved and popular books about the town, has died.

Mr Neesam, whose most recent book Wells and Swells: The Golden Age of the Harrogate Spa 1842-1923, was published in April, had been ill with cancer for a long time.

He died in the early hours of this morning, on his 76th birthday.

Mr Neesam was born in a nursing home on Ripon Road in Harrogate and grew up in the town.

He spent most of his working life as a librarian and archivist but writing and Harrogate were his enduring passions.

He was commissioned in 1973 to write a guide to children’s science fiction called Into Space, which proved to be the start of his writing career.

His most important works were Harrogate Great Chronicle 1332-1841 and Wells and Swells, which took up the town’s story after 1841, but he wrote numerous other books about the town and some of its most famous businesses.

Mr Neesam, who did not marry, has bequeathed his enormous collection of papers, which he stored in a room at his home, to the Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate.

We will be publishing an obituary about Mr Neesam as well as an article containing tributes.

Read more:

• Harrogate Club honours local historian Malcolm Neesam
• Malcolm Neesam History: The Sun Pavilion and Colonnade, Valley Gardens