RIP Blacksmith

As you may have read elsewhere, Antony Sharples (a.k.a. John Blacksmith) and a member of this forum (AJS) died in January aged 76.

He contributed much to the understanding of this case, in his inimitable, often very humorous way.

It’s sad that he didn’t live to see the outcome of the case, and particularly the outcome of OG, on which he had a very consistent strong view.

He'll be missed, and won't be forgotten.

His faith in the nation's institutions - far from shared by everyone, as we know - was quite something to see.

Institutions that aren't newspapers that is

It's very sad news. I shall miss him very much, both for his insights and his ready wit. He and I had the chance to speak privately and he was a very nice and a very kind man, provided you weren't a conspiraloon with a penchant for writing interminably long letters to the Met.

Definitely not his favourite 'researcher' or forum.

Mind you there was a long list. He didn't suffer fools, as they say. Probably a good job I never knew him, apart from his blog posts

Wonder what he would of made of the Netflix jobby.RIP smithy.

Well, we know what he thought of Summers and Swan and Gamble, so not too hard to guess!