The US government has urged Americans in the UK to “exercise caution” following an alleged attempted terrorist attack near an American-linked air force base.

The US Embassy in Britain said it was aware that five men had been arrested in Fairford after reportedly planning to cause significant damage to US military interests. The warning was issued to American citizens on Sunday.

“The US Embassy is aware of arrests on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act near the Royal Air Force base in Fairford, UK,” the embassy said in a statement.

The agency added: “US citizens are encouraged to exercise caution and remain mindful of their personal security. They should also follow the instructions of local authorities to protect their safety and security.”

RAF Fairford, located in Gloucestershire, serves as a US Air Force command hub for European operations. The base has also been used in American strikes against Iranian missile sites accused of targeting vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

The installation was previously singled out in a warning issued by Iran‘s Revolutionary Guard in July, when Britain was urged not to permit US bombers to operate from the base.

The US President praised the British police response and indicated that authorities had been monitoring the suspects before making the arrests.

“It was fantastic. Working with Britain, it was an amazing job. We had them under investigation. They were looking to do big damage to our fort, and working with the British worked out great,” he told reporters in Illinois.

“It may have been Scotland Yard, I don’t know. We worked with a lot of them. We had them under view for a long time, and we got them. Thank you.”

The arrests are not thought to have followed a pre-arranged police operation, suggesting officers may not have previously known about the alleged plot.

A local farmer reportedly alerted police after encountering five masked men described as having a Middle Eastern appearance while returning home from a party. The group was allegedly linked to a suspected car bomb plot.

“I just thought, what the hell are they doing? I saw a group of Middle Eastern-looking young guys running off through the trees. Some of them had masks or balaclavas on, and they all scattered ahead of us as we drove back past,” she told the Telegraph.

“Some ran into the fields, while others turned towards the air base. We realised this was something pretty serious,” she said.

The farmer is understood to have called 999 at around 12.45am to report people behaving suspiciously near three white vans. Police later said viable incendiary devices and chemicals had been discovered inside one of the vehicles.

She said the vehicles had been “blocking the road” before she noticed a large group of hooded men wearing balaclavas while driving home.

About 85 homes in the nearby Cotswolds countryside were evacuated as armed officers and the SAS moved into the area. The Army’s specialist bomb disposal unit also searched for any additional devices.

Maggie Blyth, Temporary Chief Constable for Gloucestershire Police, said the incident was now believed to have been ‘contained’.

‘These arrests will no doubt have caused some shock and anxiety and we want those living locally to RAF Fairford and across Gloucestershire to be sure and to know that, as agencies, we are working closely together to support them,’ she said.

‘You will appreciate this is a fast-moving situation and all agencies across Gloucestershire are actively working to respond to our communities’ needs and continue to provide information to our communities on a regular basis, we will also continue to assist counter-terrorism policing with their investigation and liaise with other national partners.

‘I can give reassurance that we believe the matter to be contained and as a set of agencies working together across Gloucestershire, we are gathering and responding to local intelligence all the time.’

A bomb disposal robot from the Army’s specialist explosive ordnance disposal team was seen on Sunday moving between the three parked vans. Two vans’ rear doors were open and what appeared to be large black barrels could be seen outside.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the Government will ‘always take every step necessary’ to protect the country following the major incident. 

He wrote on X: ‘I know today’s incident near RAF Fairford will be deeply concerning for local residents and for many people following developments across the country.

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‘My thanks go to Gloucestershire Police, Counter Terrorism Policing, our Armed Forces and all those working to keep the public safe. 

‘I am especially grateful to those residents who have been asked to leave their homes while precautionary checks are carried out. The safety and security of the public is our first priority, and I want people to know that we will always take every step necessary to protect our communities and keep our country safe. 

‘The investigation remains ongoing, and I would urge people not to speculate while the authorities establish the full facts.’ 

RAF Fairford has been put on Delta alert, the highest threat level used by Washington’s Department of Defense.

Meanwhile security has been tightened at other US bases in the UK, with reports that RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk has been placed on Charlie alert, the second-highest threat level.

A spokesman for the 48th Fighter Wing told the Daily Mail: ‘We constantly assess a variety of factors that determine what measures are implemented or modified. 

‘Please be assured that the Tri-Base area (RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell) remains vigilant and will take appropriate action to ensure the safety and security of US service members, US and UK civilians, contractors, and their families.’

The resident who pictured the group’s arrest told this newspaper: ‘I was asleep and was woken up by shouting coming from outside.

‘I couldn’t tell what was being shouted but as I got nearer the window, I could see the road was being lit up by blue flashing lights from police vehicles. On one side of the road, officers had five men lined up. They all had their shirts removed.

‘They were instructed to sit down. They were patted down by the officers and then had their shoes and socks removed.

‘I think they must have been there for about half an hour. The suspects were then told to get up and were walked round the corner.

‘I lost sight of them after that but I presumed they were put in police vans and led away. This all happened just outside the perimeter of RAF Fairford.

‘The police are investigating three work vans parked a few hundred yards from my house. We’ve not been told much, we were just asked to evacuate our homes early this morning.’

Police were alerted to the incident in the early hours by a hero resident who reported men ‘acting suspiciously’ to police.

Julian Tudsbery, who has lived in Whelford for 30 years, said a local had reported three ‘suspicious vans’ in the village. 

‘Evidently, they phoned the airbase police, who didn’t answer the phone,’ he said. ‘It just rang out so she dialled 999.’

In June, the US government said it would spend around $500million (£377million) on ‘expansion and military infrastructure’ at the base, understood to include a new hangar complex.

A month earlier the Royal International Air Tattoo, set to be held at the base in July, was cancelled after the Royal Air Force Charitable Trust Enterprises (RAFCTE) said the ‘escalating geopolitical situation in the Middle East’ had required a ‘significant increase in real-world operational missions’ from RAF Fairford.

RAFCTE said both the Royal and US air forces needed to ‘maintain unrestricted, 24/7 operational readiness at the base’.

Shortly after the US and Israel began the war with Iran on February 28, roads surrounding RAF Fairford were closed in a bid to ‘address safety and access issues’.

Protective screens were mounted on the base’s perimeter fences in March to stop filming after it became popular with plane spotters when US bombers began arriving.

That month US military personnel at the base were pictured preparing explosives at the base as Washington intensified strikes on Iran.

The Daily Mail reached out to The White House for comment.  

The Prince of Wales ignored questions about his uncle’s controversial new memoir as he arrived at a community cinema in Acton this week, walking straight past waiting reporters without comment.

William, 44, appeared composed in a navy suit and tie, giving no indication that he intended to involve himself in the controversy surrounding Earl Spencer’s book, Swan Song.

His response reflected the long-standing royal approach of keeping public complaints and explanations to a minimum.

That unwritten rule has faced mounting pressure in recent years, particularly after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s televised interviews and Earl Spencer’s latest disclosures. In the memoir, he claims King Charles appeared “giddily elated” during a telephone conversation following the death of Diana, and alleges that the monarch was in love with his valet.

Buckingham Palace responded with an unusually forceful statement, casting doubt on the account and warning that grief can “cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory”.

William, who was just 15 when he walked behind his mother’s coffin, has nevertheless shown no desire to be drawn into the latest family dispute.

Although his silence could be interpreted as detachment, royal observers believe his decision not to respond is rooted in something more personal.

The future king has previously discussed the emotional strain of 2024, a year in which both his wife, the Princess of Wales, and his father were diagnosed with cancer. During an appearance on Apple TV’s The Reluctant Traveler, he called it “probably the hardest year of my life”.

“It’s been dreadful, it’s probably been the hardest year of my life, so trying to keep everything on track has been really difficult,” he said.

Royal commentator Phil Dampier said the experience appears to have strengthened William and Catherine’s resolve to draw a firm line around their family’s private life.

“William and Kate have had a policy of never complain, never explain,” he said. “We saw it earlier this week when a reporter asked him [about the book] and he didn’t reply, and that’s the way they’re going to play it.”

Dampier added: “William had the worst year of his life, which he has talked about himself. He had all the problems of Harry and Prince Andrew swirling about, causing problems for the monarchy that he will be heading in not a very long time.”

There have been rare occasions when William has broken with that cautious tradition. After Harry and Meghan accused the royal family of racism during their Oprah Winfrey interview, he addressed the issue directly, telling a reporter: “We are very much not a racist family.”

For the most part, however, William and Catherine have presented a carefully controlled public image. They believe that approach gives their three children the best chance of enjoying a relatively ordinary upbringing despite growing up under intense media scrutiny, described by Dampier as living in a “goldfish bowl”.

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“William is preparing for when he becomes king and he’s setting the standard for how he wants to play it,” Dampier said.

“The worst year of his life gave him perspective and inner strength. Catherine’s got that inner contentment that she’s seen off the worst. I think both of them, having come through that, are stronger for it.”

He continued: “Their priorities are first and foremost family and making sure the three kids have a normal background considering the goldfish bowl in which they live.”

But beneath William’s measured public manner is a determined and forceful personality—qualities that Dampier believes could significantly influence the British monarchy when he eventually takes the throne.

He points to something as seemingly trivial as William’s refusal to wear a kilt in Scotland.

When the Prince visited the Isle of Bute last week, he opted for an anorak, despite his father being renowned for donning a kilt whenever he is north of the border.

‘He doesn’t want to and has never been seen wearing a kilt in Scotland, whereas King Charles will don a kilt at the drop of a hat,’ Dampier said.

‘William doesn’t like wearing them and once he’s made his mind up, he tends to stick to it. If he doesn’t want to wear a kilt, he won’t.’

That quiet stubbornness could prove significant when William eventually inherits the throne.

Earlier this month, he and Catherine escorted their eldest son George to Eton, the same school where William himself was educated and prepared for his future role.

The image inevitably recalled 1995, when Diana, dressed in a chic blue suit, accompanied her eldest son to the Berkshire school as he began his journey towards adulthood.

Now William has come full circle. With his father entering old age and the crown edging ever closer, the Prince of Wales is increasingly conscious of the weight of history and of his mother’s legacy.

But rather than being drawn into the dramas that once consumed the Royal Family, William appears intent on doing things his own way: quietly, firmly and away from the headlines.

Residents have criticised the decision to cover a Norman castle in Devon with a giant rainbow flag during a Pride festival.

People in Totnes woke on Saturday to find the town’s landmark draped in a 150-metre (492ft) flag, installed as part of a four-day programme of events.

Thirty local flag bearers helped unfurl and raise the enormous display around the historic site.

Organisers described the installation, titled Capture the Castle, as a statement that “queer people have always been here and always will be”.

The spectacle has sparked a heated debate in the town, with some residents claiming it detracts from the castle’s historic importance.

Ian Robinson mocked the display in a Facebook post, pointing to the castle’s 950 years of Norman history, medieval conflict, royal proclamations and Civil War before joking that the monument had apparently reached the point where it needed a 150-metre rainbow flag.

He added sarcastically that centuries of heritage had evidently not been colourful enough, quipping that at least the tea room had survived to see the decline.

Local roofer Russell Blackaller said he supported celebrating culture and people, but questioned the decision to attach the flag to the castle.

Because he works on listed buildings, he said he found the situation particularly controversial.

Blackaller pointed out that owners of Grade II-listed properties can need formal permission simply to put up scaffolding.

By contrast, he said, a Grade I-listed monument had been wrapped in flags for a celebration.

Although he acknowledged that permission may have been granted, Blackaller said he still considered the installation inappropriate.

Courtney Soleil said she did not oppose people having the freedom to live as they wished, but argued that historic landmarks should not always be turned into symbols for the latest cause.

She described Totnes Castle as a 950-year-old Norman monument and part of Britain’s shared heritage, noting that generations had served and died for the Crown and country.

Soleil said it was reasonable for people to want historic sites to reflect the nation’s collective history rather than repeatedly being used to promote a single cause.

Other residents, however, defended the decision and welcomed the giant flag as part of the local Pride celebrations.

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Heather Owen said it was troubling to reflect that people seen as different or unconventional would once have faced persecution or even death throughout the castle’s long history. She added that there was much to celebrate in the present day.

Neil Clarke said he hoped for a future in which Pride was no longer necessary.

‘Where two men could hold hands, two women could kiss goodbye in the street, or somebody could simply mention their same-sex partner without ever having to consider whether the people around them might react with hostility.

‘But we don’t quite live in that world yet. And, rather wonderfully, the comments underneath this photograph demonstrate the point far more effectively than the 150 metres of rainbow fabric ever could.

‘Nobody has damaged the castle. Nobody has rewritten its history. Nobody has forced you to attend Pride, wave a flag or change anything about the way you live your own life. 

‘For one morning, an ancient building was used as the backdrop to tell part of the local community: you belong here too.’

A spokesman for Totnes Pride told The Telegraph: ‘Capture the Castle is the image that will define this year’s festival, but what we’ve built around it is a genuinely ambitious arts and culture programme – over 40 events.

‘We’ve worked hard to create a four-day programme that reflects what makes this town special – its community, in all of its colourful and eclectic glory. Its love for revelling in live music and dancing. 

‘Its deep connection to the land and the River Dart. Its platforming of local artists and wordsmiths. But above all, it’s a place that welcomes people from all walks of life.’

Totnes Pride has previously come under fire for its use of council funding for art installations.

In 2015, the group caused a row over plans for a permanent rainbow zebra crossing.

It was eventually blocked by Devon County Council, which said it may confuse drivers. 

Critics also questioned whether a Union flag would have been allowed to drape the walls of the council.

In 2016, Totnes Council removed a Union flag which was deemed ‘too noisy’ when it was flapping in the wind. 

Totnes Castle was first raised soon after the Norman Conquest and sits at the highest point of the hilltop town. 

It is considered one of the best preserved examples of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle in England

When Richard arrived at his mother’s hotel room in Las Vegas on Mother’s Day weekend in 2016, he was holding a bouquet of roses.

Because Mother’s Day and Richard’s birthday fell at the same time, Ann Marie Farino had flown to Las Vegas to spend the weekend with her son. At 24, Richard appeared to have found stability: he had been sober for three years, was working and had fallen in love.

He was due to marry that September, and Ann Marie had already begun the calligraphy for his wedding invitations. Yet when she opened the door, she immediately sensed that something was not right. “He said, ‘Now you’re here. Now, hopefully, I’ll be okay,’” Ann Marie tells the Daily Mail.

Over the following days, Richard started giving his mother his belongings, including his keys, computer and even a piece of needlepoint she had made for his birthday. When Ann Marie handed him family photographs, he focused on a picture of himself and said, “I look so ugly.” She urged him to see a therapist, but Richard said he would go after she had left.

At the end of the visit, Ann Marie hugged him at the hotel door, pressing her cheek to his as she had done with each of her children since they were young. As she walked away, the doorman called out, telling her to come back soon.

“I said, ‘I won’t be back soon,’” Ann Marie recalls. Even now, she cannot explain why those words came out.

‘He swung from the treetops’

Before the concern and uncertainty, Richard was the child who could always make Ann Marie laugh. Social and charismatic, he had a huge heart and a memorable sense of humour that often became part of their private jokes. Even reading a menu could turn into an extended exchange between mother and son.

Ann Marie says Richard was handsome, although he never appeared to recognise it himself. And when he was happy, she says, he was intensely happy.

By the time he was about 12, his playful mischief had begun to cause problems. Pranks at school led to calls from the principal, and as he grew older, his escapades became increasingly risky.

“He was the kid who didn’t go down the road less travelled,” Ann Marie says. “This kid swung from the treetops.”

Whenever one of those adventures ended badly, Richard would often call his mother for help. Ann Marie always went to him.

At the same time, she was seeing a more troubled side to the boy who could light up a room. Richard sometimes withdrew, and bouts of depression and anxiety appeared to contradict the funny, outgoing son other people knew. Long before drugs entered his life, Ann Marie understood that her son was carrying something she could not resolve for him.

‘Mum, it makes me feel normal’

During Richard’s first year of high school, Ann Marie caught him smoking marijuana beside their home.

Her response was that of a worried parent. She warned him that he could not continue living that way, reminding him that he would eventually need a job, employers might conduct drug tests and the decisions he made as a teenager could affect his adult life.

Richard looked at her and replied with words she would understand in a very different way years later.

‘It makes me feel normal.’

At the time, Ann Marie was focused on stopping his drug use. Richard was also struggling with his mental health. She says he was diagnosed with a depressive disorder and anxiety, while doctors raised the possibility of bipolar disorder, although that was never confirmed.

The drug use became more serious. Marijuana was followed by prescription opioids, which Ann Marie says Richard and some of his school friends obtained through a doctor they were seeing. Eventually, there was heroin.

Looking back, it is Richard’s explanation beside the house that has stayed with her. Ann Marie came to believe her son wasn’t simply chasing a high. He had discovered something that, for a while at least, changed how it felt to be inside his own head.

‘He wasn’t trying to get high,’ she says. ‘He was trying to feel normal.’

Walking on eggshells

By then, Ann Marie says she was ‘always walking on eggshells’. She knew something was going to happen, but never what it would be or when. Richard’s addiction had entered family life with him, and everyone in the house was learning to live around it.

His much younger sister adored him. Richard adored her too, but whenever he was high and she walked into the room, he would leave. She was too young to understand why and eventually reached the conclusion that made sense to a little girl: her big brother didn’t like her.

Years later, after Richard became sober, the siblings took part in a therapy program together and she finally told him what she had believed. Richard was stunned. He hadn’t been leaving because he didn’t want her around, he explained. He had been ashamed for his little sister to see him high. Whatever happened afterwards, she would at least know that her brother had loved her all along.

The family had been trying for years to help Richard. There were treatment programs and rehab, including time at a therapeutic boarding school away from home, with schooling, therapy and family weekends built into the program.

Each attempt brought hope that perhaps this would be the thing that reached him, but nothing seemed to hold for long.

The strain reached Ann Marie’s marriage, too. She and Richard’s father often disagreed about discipline and how best to help their son, and she says those years contributed to their marriage breaking down.

‘The call she knew was coming’

Richard was 21 when Ann Marie realised just how close she was to losing him.

One day, he became so unwell he could barely get the word ‘hospital’ out. Ann Marie thought he had the flu and drove him to the emergency room. Usually, Richard let his mother go through with him. This time he said no.

Richard had been using heroin and had overdosed. After doctors saved him, he told his mother, ‘You know, if I don’t get sober, I’ll eventually die.’

Yet two days later, Ann Marie watched him get dressed to go out with friends. She begged him not to leave. ‘If you leave right now, I know I’m getting a phone call,’ she told him. ‘Either from a hospital or the jail.’

Richard walked out, assuring her that everything would be OK. Soon afterwards, Ann Marie’s phone rang. He had been arrested with heroin.

By then she had watched her son go through treatment, come home and use again. This time, however, Richard was standing in front of a judge who made it clear that what happened next would no longer be his choice.

‘Welcome to the world of felonies,’ Ann Marie remembers the female judge telling him. ‘Your life is not yours anymore. It belongs to me.’

Ann Marie wanted to hug her.

Richard entered the court-ordered program and completed it, eventually having the charge dropped. But Ann Marie believes something else had changed too. After years of other people desperately wanting Richard to get well, this was the first time he seemed to want sobriety for himself.

And this time, it held.

‘I thought maybe that was it’

For the next three years, Richard stayed sober in St Paul, Minnesota.

He found a job at a vitamin store and became fascinated by health and nutrition. He ran, rode his bike and researched the products he sold so thoroughly that customers began seeking him out, knowing Richard would take the time to understand what they needed and genuinely try to help.

Ann Marie began getting her son back in quieter, wonderfully ordinary ways. Richard would arrive for their restaurant dates wearing his blue blazer, open the car door for her and refuse to tell her where they were eating until they arrived. After years in which so much of their relationship had revolved around whether he was using, where he was and whether he was safe, they could simply go out for dinner.

At 21, Richard also told her something he had known since he was 16: he was gay. Ann Marie was happy her son finally felt able to be himself, but devastated that he had spent those years feeling unable to tell his family. After everything he had struggled with, she found herself wondering whether this had been one of the pieces they hadn’t understood.

‘I thought maybe that was it,’ she says.

Then Richard fell in love. He became engaged and moved from St Paul to Las Vegas to be with his fiancé, who was working there. Their wedding was planned for September 2016. Ann Marie began addressing the invitations by hand.

Three months after the move, with Mother’s Day falling just before Richard’s birthday, she booked a flight to Las Vegas to see him.

The wedding invitations

A month after Ann Marie returned home, Richard died.

Mother and son had been texting that day. Nothing about those messages told Ann Marie that by the end of it, her 24-year-old son would be gone. Later, she set out to meet friends for dinner, but on the way she was overcome by a strange physical sensation. Something felt so wrong that she turned around and went home.

Afterwards, when Ann Marie saw the police report and the approximate time Richard had died, she came to believe that strange feeling had happened at around the same time.

‘I felt him leave,’ she says.

Then Richard’s fiancé called.

Ann Marie remembers the doctor coming onto the phone and hearing the words no parent can make sense of when they are first spoken. Richard had died by his own hand. She handed the phone to her husband and walked away.

And then she saw the wedding invitations.

They were still there, the envelopes Ann Marie had carefully addressed in her own calligraphy for the wedding her son was supposed to have in September. Only weeks earlier, she had been writing out names for the people who would come to watch Richard get married.

Ann Marie grabbed a garbage bag and began throwing them away.

‘The grief doesn’t happen right away,’ she says. ‘What happens is pure catastrophic shock.’

For years, she had lived with the fear that one day a hospital or police officer might call about Richard. He had survived heroin, an overdose and years when she never quite knew what the next phone call would bring. Then he had been sober for three years, and Ann Marie had allowed herself to believe they might have made it through.

There was nothing that could have prepared her for losing him now.

Just do something

In the days after Richard died, Ann Marie’s house filled with people. They loved her and wanted desperately to help, but she was still in the state she now describes as catastrophic shock. Even answering a well-meaning question such as ‘What can I do?’ could require more of a newly bereaved person than they have to give.

Her advice now is simple: say ‘I’m sorry’, then do something. Sit beside them. Clean the kitchen. Bring groceries. Be there without expecting them to tell you what they need or requiring them to hold a conversation.

At Richard’s wake, one woman waited three hours in line just to speak to Ann Marie. She had also lost a child to suicide and, when she finally got to her, she didn’t try to make the loss understandable.

‘When everyone is sick and tired of you talking about Richard, call me,’ she said.

Ann Marie never forgot it. This woman knew something others couldn’t yet know: the funeral would end, people would return to their lives, and Ann Marie would still need to say her son’s name.

Team Richard

For a long time, Ann Marie went to Richard’s grave every day. She took a lawn chair and, when the weather allowed, plants to water. Even through the Chicago winter, she kept going. Her son was buried there, and in those early months, sitting close to him was where she wanted to be.

Eventually, she began walking. One day she put on Richard’s winter hat and made him a deal: she would walk the six miles from home to the cemetery. Then she decided she would walk home again too.

That was how she found the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Overnight Walk, an 18-mile walk through San Diego. Less than a year after Richard died, Ann Marie travelled there with family and friends who had come together as ‘Team Richard’ to walk in his memory. They wore shirts featuring Joe Cool, the Snoopy character Richard had tattooed on his arm.

Through the night, Ann Marie walked beside other parents, siblings and friends carrying losses of their own. At the finish, luminarias lined the route, glowing with photographs of the people they had come to remember.

Somewhere among them was Richard.

Ann Marie and Team Richard walked through them together.

In the years since, Ann Marie has also put Richard’s story, and her own, into words. Her memoir, Chronic Chaos: A Son’s Addiction, A Mother’s Love, and Her Quest to Find Joy, traces the years she spent loving her son through addiction and recovery, and the life she has had to build since losing him. It will be published in October.

‘What’s your story?’

Ann Marie knew the tenth anniversary of Richard’s death was coming this year. What she hadn’t expected was the force with which it would arrive.

She calls what happened a ‘grief storm’. Ten years had passed, and there was joy in her life again. She had found ways to carry Richard with her without every day being consumed by losing him. But reaching a decade without her son brought the grief rushing back in a way that blindsided her.

That is something Ann Marie understands now about living after Richard. Time has changed her grief, but it hasn’t erased it. Some seasons are lighter than others. There are days when she can remember her son with laughter and others when missing him still feels terribly close.

But when asked what she wants people to know about Richard, Ann Marie doesn’t begin with addiction, mental illness or the way he died.

Back in St Paul, Richard used to make sandwiches, put them into his backpack and go looking for people experiencing homelessness. He didn’t simply hand them food and walk away. He sat down beside them.

‘I’m Richard. It’s nice to meet you. What’s your story?’

Then he listened.

Richard returned often enough that he came to know many of the people he met. He learned their names and their stories because, despite everything he was carrying himself, he was interested in what somebody else might be carrying too.

‘He had such a lovely heart,’ Ann Marie says.

Ten years after his death, that is the Richard she wants people to know.