Sophie Hunter

Sophie Hunter

Why is it that it’s only after we’ve lost someone that we articulate the role they played in our lives? As I filter through 26 years of precious memories of Nick as both my colleague and my friend, I realise that, simply put, Nick was a life enhancer.

In 1997, Nick gave me my job with the Crucible Youth Theatre. After my previous disastrous job, to land in Sheffield into the warmth, joy, and fun of youth theatre was a wonderful shift. Nick gave me permission to play, to explore, to be my very best creative self, and to share all of that with our young people. They were halcyon days and somehow enabled me, and I think all my youth theatre colleagues, the opportunity to be life enhancers too.

Nick was an extraordinarily generous manager and colleague. I got a crazy notion in my head that we should do a cultural exchange with Japan, and he just said, “go for it”. It lasted three magical years. I remember at the start, we found ourselves co-leading sessions on Youth Theatre leadership. In the first couple of weeks, I recall them feeling a bit spikey and awkward but I didn’t know why. And then after one session, Nick was able to articulate the discrepancy he saw and felt between what we were teaching the young people about leadership, and how the two of us were actually behaving as a team. And he was right. We both cried that night and vowed to work together differently, and I class that moment as the beginning of us really being friends, rather than just colleagues.

I loved witnessing how genuinely kind and caring he was with all the young people we worked with. They were at such a crucial, formative age and he guided them to see and share their own brilliance. Over the past 20 years, I have loved watching Nick offer the same care and kindness to my children, forging his own independent relationship with them both, always interested in the reality of their lives, supportive of the paths they’ve each chosen. It was only after his death that our eldest, Maya, told us that whilst she was in living France at the end of last year, Nick had been in touch with her, asking how she was doing, and had even sent her a birthday video sung in French. She is sad that she’s not able to be here today because she’s just started a Theatre and Social Change course at university in London – and I know Nick would be absolutely thrilled about that!

Although we worked together again for years after we’d both left the Crucible, it was NOT working together that allowed me to really appreciate Nick even more. He inspired me in the way he really showed up for himself, as well as everyone else. I enjoyed all the different challenges he set himself, and that he engaged with. And I loved the way he shared them with us all.

On the day he died, I happened to come across the term Soul Guardian: it means someone whose presence in your life somehow encourages you to be or become your very best self – the person who you were meant to be. Nick was a Soul Guardian for me, and I believe he was for many others. He was always interested and always interesting; a deeply special, inspirational man who changed my life for the better. He enhanced life, in every action and interaction. I really hope he knew that. My world is so much richer because Nick was in it.