I find it hard to believe that a force of nature like Dale is no longer with us.

Dale worked for me at ntl: running the lab at Dolphin Square, building a cable technology presentation suite, demonstrating future services to a number of important visitors and carrying out field trials on leading edge technologies.

Dale was good at technology and had an easy and confident style in presenting that made everyone feel at ease, essential if you want to get the most from these types of events.

But the real underlying strengths Dale brought to his everyday work, were his fantastic positive outlook on life, his determination to find a way through any problem, his ability to work with people and a wonderful sense of humour.

Whenever I went to the Dolphin Square lab to meet Dale and his team, I came out enthused by what we could do with technology to improve service to our customers and to just have fun!

It didn't matter that I'd been talking to Dale about all of these developments for some time. It didn't matter that I knew what the projects were setting out to achieve or that I knew the solutions that Dale was going to present to me. When I left the lab, it was a if Dale had taken me beyond all of that and just left me with a sense of ambition and a happy glow! Such a talent and a wonderful guy!!

I was talking to Michelle about Dale, after she broke the news of his passing to me. I told her a story which I promised her I'd write here, because it captures Dale's sense of humour. I've recalled it a number of times since I left Virgin, and I've shared it many times with others, so it has to go on here!

Probably near the start of 2005, I was completing the new year's objectives with my direct reports and I'd asked Dale to get his final draft into me.

It was a busy time for all of us, including Dale and me, but after a bit of nagging Dale got his first draft into me.

Dale wondered if I'd get round to reading his draft properly, so he set me a little trap, which I fell into.

In the middle of a number of very good objectives, covering DOCSIS 2 trials, VDSL trials, fibre to the home and file-sharing amongst others, he slipped in a spoof objective. He committed to send Neil Illingworth on Astronaut Training!

Dale rightly guessed that I may just skim the objectives (they were a long list) through lack of time. I'm a positive guy myself and always wanted to give people good feedback when they met objectives, so at my next meeting with Dale I thanked him for getting his objectives in and told him they looked good............. at which point he asked me when we could sign off Neil's training!

We both laughed. I knew Dale had caught me out, but it wasn't malicious. Dale was never malicious in any way. Apart from being funny, it reminded me to take time when I was under pressure, Make sure to make the time to read things properly and enjoy the things that I set out to achieve with my team.

That's not a bad lesson and it's one that I've always been grateful to Dale for.

It was a privilege to know and work with Dale.

So long buddy!