Richard Stanton 1965 - 2015
Richard Stanton, the National Secretary of Australian Forestry Standard Ltd, died in a tragic accident just over a week ago.
I didn’t know Richard long. I met him in 2012 and had been providing him with ad hoc communications services since 2013.
So how do you deal with the death of a client?
The relationship is an unusual one.
You are contracted as a supplier. You’re not staff. You’re not really a colleague.
But you see a side of clients that many others may not.
You see them at their most vulnerable, when they’re under attack in the media. You see the professional pressure they come under when they can’t get traction on an issue. You absorb their anger when activists misrepresent their industries.
And you can be a sounding board for ideas not well formed enough to take to their colleagues or boards. That level of trust is a gift.
But you don’t really know them.
I had some long, meaty and hilarious conversations with Richard. I’m talking laugh out loud stuff. We’d dissect policy, politics, consumer behaviour, activist tactics and the changing media landscape.
I would be thrilled when our media releases got a run verbatim. He would screw up his face and warn me that cuts to newsrooms would impact the quality and transparency of the public debate. Tough crowd!
A generous spirit, fierce intellect, astute political mind and a dry (often wicked) sense of humour, I never finished a conversation with Richard without having learned something new and having had a good laugh.
But he didn’t really talk much about himself. Sure, he dropped the occasional family anecdote, but he wasn’t the type to tell me about his weekend.
So my grief is a strange thing to pigeonhole.
As an expression support for his family, I made a donation to their nominated charity, and I contributed to the online condolences book. But I struggled with whether to go to his memorial service.
I’ve learned more about Richard through the media and chatting to his colleagues in the last week, than I knew beforehand. And in some way, it feels intrusive.
I wasn’t sure if I should go to where his family, friends and colleagues would be grieving for the man they new so well.
In the end, I made a snap decision to go to the memorial service. And I’m glad I did.
I knew Richard was a husband and father.
But I learned he was a cyclist, a runner, a swimmer and in his youth, a mixed water polo player (to meet girls, his friend suggested?).
I learned he had run 24 consecutive Sydney half-marathons, still had the friends he made when he was 7 years old and fought the 2003 Canberra bushfires.
I learned that he and a friend recently cycled from Canberra to Cootamundra and that his riding song was “Beautiful Noise,” by Neil Diamond.
I learned that hundreds of people so loved and admired Richard that it was standing room only at his service at the Australian National University, where he had studied Forestry.
I was glad to learn that everything I thought about Richard, his humour, his generosity, his intelligence and his quiet, dependable and reserved nature were reflected in the tributes from his family and friends.
I am glad that even if I didn’t know Richard well, he was a client who had obviously shared his authentic self with me.
And that too, is a gift.
