We are deeply saddened to share the news that Andrew Clarke, better known to Simple-Talk readers as Phil Factor, recently passed away. He was the site’s editor for several years and continued writing for Redgate long after. Many readers will have learned much of what they know about SQL from Andrew. Others will remember working with him on articles, benefiting from his sharp wit and knowledge, or perhaps meeting him at a PASS conference. To all who knew him, he was a uniquely talented, intelligent, kind, generous, and funny man.

For me, I’ve lost both a good friend and a big part of my intellectual world. For years he was someone I turned to not just for content but for help untangling difficult problems. Through our conversations about work and writing, he helped shape my thinking and gave me the energy I needed for even daunting tasks. I will feel his absence for a long time.

I first met Andrew through his writing, when I was asked to assess a Phil Factor article during my Redgate interview in 2005. It was like no other technical writing I’d ever read. Soon after I joined, Andrew visited the offices and, in quick succession, managed to soak his trousers in the splash back from an over-energetic tap and then set off the alarm by accidentally opening the fire exit. He was a winning combination of brilliance and gentle chaos.

So began 20 years of friendship and collaboration, and I quickly realized my luck in finding a one-off talent. Drawing on decades of experience in the IT world, with all its quirks and absurdities, Andrew could take the mundane and spin it into the extraordinary. An odd experience I’d had with IT support became a science-fiction tale complete with alien invaders and laughing gas. A request for a ‘SQL Prompt overview’ became a treasure map and a poem. In his NOT NULL article, I learned how to count to twenty in archaic Cumbrian Scots.

He taught me so much about writing and editing: the need for clarity, directness, humor, humility, and above all, respect for the audience. “If you haven’t walked in their shoes,” he’d say, “you’ve no hope of producing good content.”

He liked to say that if a story was any good, you ought to be able to tell it in one page. As a tribute to him, I’ve tried to stick to that here. I’m still jotting down the many other things I learned from him that I want to carry forward, in small ways, to keep his work and words echoing through my own.

Andrew brought passion and insight to everything he did, whether writing articles, playing the lute, or researching historic photos for the Foxearth Local History Society. I will miss him greatly, and I know many of you will have your own memories of Andrew or his work, so please do share them in the comments. He was truly one of a kind.