The sad news that Colin died on 19 October 2021 was received in a message from Chris Southgate:
‘I have been told this morning that Colin died in hospital on Tuesday. His daughter Anna has been living with her Mum (Christa) and Dad for a few weeks, as both have seemingly been struggling with dementia. Their home is in Eaton Street, Norwich. Both the Wood’s were members of the Koblenz Friendship Association – which supports twinning of Norwich with Koblenz. I am a committee member. When Colin arrived as the first Chief Accountant, I was in F8 – one of three HEOs. The others were Mike Lynn and Jim Payne. But we also housed Bert Crowne, who was the standing authority for an antiquated cost allocation system then in use. He had memorable battles with Colin, who was gently endeavouring to understand then supplant Bert’s formulas!’
Colin joined HMSO as Chief Accountant on 1 March 1971. He was promoted Principal in November 1980, becoming Head of Internal Audit. The photograph above shows him with members of the Audit team.
David Higenbottam adds: Very sad news. Colin adopted the traditional Chartered Accountants motto of “I am here to criticise but not to offer any solutions”. He was a true eccentric and his one man bacofoil protest about the low temperature in his office in the early 70’s became legendary.
I worked with him in IA and he was a true gentleman and a scholar. He was very supportive as a line manager and it was a pleasure to get to know him better. When I joined Pubns I became embroiled in a decade long argument with him over the valuation of publishing stocks. In fact Brian Jackson gleefully handed over the file to me and told me to deal with it going forward. Colin`s voluminous minutes on the subject would have filled a book that I suspect no-one bar Colin and I would have read.
His son Tim owned The Jubilee PH for a number of years and daughter Annie (as we knew her) was occasional door security at my local. A small world as they say!
RIP Colin.