My mate Pat

Dennis Koutoulogenis (DK), ECD at Ilk, Sydney fondly remembers his mate and former art director Pat Richer, who was tragically killed in Kenya on the weekend

Pat Richer was my first art director. We teamed up at AWARD School in 1996, and worked together for the next 5 years, at VCD, mojo and Batey Kazoo, before he moved to Kenya, in search of adventure.

Pat was a genuine, warm, loving bloke with a big heart. In fact, “heart” is the word that probably best sums him up. He always put that big heart and soul into everything he did: sport, work, drinking, smoking and love – he did none of them half-heartedly.

Pat didn’t just live life, he rushed headlong into it like a crazy man. As fellow creative and our former workmate Ant Melder puts it: “He was a crazy one-off mentalist with a proper lust for life.”

In his younger days, living in Frenchs Forest and attending Davidson High, he was an excellent sportsman. But not for him the run-of-the-mill sports. Pat wanted something faster, more exciting, more dangerous than your usual footy or cricket. So he played ice hockey. And he was very good at it, making a number of rep teams.

Pat lived life the same way: full on, high impact, high risk. He was always looking to the next challenge or adventure. I got a glimpse of it when he took his first overseas trip, to Bali and Lombok. He wasn’t the type to stick to the usual tourist traps. Instead, he befriended the locals and spent his time among them, taking loads of photographs and buying them all presents before he left too.

He genuinely cared about other people, and was always willing to put them first. For example, those who knew him know how much he loved a drink. Yet, as one of my groomsmen – pictured above right with me on my wedding day – he eschewed the free open bar and stuck to Diet Coke, so he could be on his best behaviour for my big day. He even lopped his famous pony-tail to scrub up in the penguin suit.

Pat was in love with life, and in love with love as well. He wore his big heart on his sleeve. As a young man, he’d fall in love on a regular basis. So much so that we’d tease him about it. But that was Pat. When he gave his heart, he gave all of it, unconditionally. No half-measures. All or nothing.

And so it was when he went to Africa. He fell in love with the place. With the adventure, and the lawlessness. And, later, with Leslie, who became his wife. I remember some of the hair-raising stories of driving where road rules were optional, drinking in small townships and going on safari. We worried about the dangers and risks, but then, we also knew that they were precisely the reasons he loved living there.

Pat and Les visited Sydney a number of years ago, and we had a drink together. I asked whether they were thinking about coming back to work here, but I already knew the answer. Aussie Pat was an African now. His long, excited emails full of glorious images and wild tales were testament to the wide-eyed wonder with which he’d embraced his new home.

In his quest for adventure, he went on to work briefly in Dubai, and travelled through Asia, but his heart was in Africa, and it wasn’t long before he was back there again.

I remember one of his favourite sayings: “I’m immortal.” He’d often use it as a retort, if we had the temerity to suggest, for example, that he should cut down on the ciggies a bit. And then he’d challenge someone to logically prove to him that he wasn’t.

We couldn’t, of course, and he took great delight in the fact that nobody could definitively show that he wasn’t going to live forever. Indeed, when he miraculously survived an awful car accident seven years ago in Kenya, that took the lives of our mate and fellow advertising creative Julian Horton and his wife, we were almost tempted to believe him.

This senseless act of violence – shot dead by a gang of ten men, during a robbery in his home in Kenya – has silenced all arguments. The love that blossomed into marriage, between the two survivors of that terrible car crash, Pat and Leslie, has now been shattered. And we have all been left numb.

I promised Pat we’d catch up for a beer next time he was in Sydney. I’m still going to have that beer, with some of his advertising mates, and remember the times we worked together, taking our first, formative steps in the advertising world. The early days at AWARD School, lugging our big, black portfolio around from place to place, sitting with our layout pads on the front steps at VCD in Ultimo late at night, the challenges on the fussball table at Mojo and working on the waterfront in the Rocks at Batey Kazoo.

You were a good bloke Pat. I’ll always remember your advertising ponytail, your big smile, your positivity and optimism, your love for life and your big, big heart.

We’ll miss you mate.