So Long, Paddy Handscombe
Patrick Handscombe, born 16th March 1950, died aged 75 on 30th July 2025
Paddy Handscombe (1950-2025)
I met Paddy when he returned to Dennis Severs’ House to have his portrait taken by Lucinda Douglas Menzies in 2022. In her portrait above you see him seated in the Dickens’ attic at the house.
When Rupert Thomas curated an exhibition of Simon Pettet’s ceramics the next year, I visited Paddy at his house in Wivenhoe several times for lunch to interview him about his relationship with Simon in the eighties and nineties, during the years that he lived in Spitalfields.
Paddy was ebullient and unsentimental about his missing leg and revealed himself to be an astonishing polymath with extensive eclectic knowledge in many fields derived from his time at Sotheby’s, as a deep sea diver, and subsequently as licensee of Europe’s largest sex club. He insisted that lunches were accompanied by several glasses of red wine and I often dozed off on the return journey to Liverpool St Station, my mind reeling with his breathtaking tales.
These interviews formed the basis of ‘Simon’s Story’, a play that I wrote and directed at Dennis Severs’ House in 2023, exploring the relationship of Paddy and Simon at the time they both lived there. Below I have edited together some excerpts of Paddy telling this story in his own words.
“I met Dennis Severs first in the seventies when he was tousle-haired Californian surfing boy.
In 1989 at The Market Tavern, a gay pub at Nine Elms, I met Simon Pettet who came to stand beside me, eating cheese and onion crisps. ‘They smell dreadful,’ I said and he replied, ‘I’m only eating them to stand next to you. Do you want to come back to my place in Spitalfields?’ So we go out to my Rolls Royce and he said, ‘Is this your car?’ and I said, ‘It’s not the most usual car!’ and he said, ‘I live in a very unusual house.’ I replied, ‘I guess you live in Dennis Severs’ House?’
We spent a night of passion, it was wonderful. Dennis was in America but when he returned Simon rang and asked me to dinner. Dennis was delighted Simon had found someone he already knew and Simon was pleased that Dennis approved. I spent a lot of nights here and then I lived here for about nine months, until Simon switched me off. I was floored.
Dennis put me onto Rodney Archer so I lived at 31 Fournier St for four years. Then one morning the phone rang and it was Simon. He said, ‘Don’t panic, I’m in hospital.’ He had pneumonia and the question was where would he live. He knew already that he had HIV but now he had AIDS.
Dennis said Simon could not live in his house any more. He had HIV himself. Deep down, I think he was frightened. Dennis was the love of Simon’s life but, in the end, Dennis was a loner and one of the most promiscuous men in London.
Marianna Kennedy arranged for Simon to live at 27 Fournier St and he lasted a couple of years there until he died at twenty-eight years old. He opened up to me again and I looked after him. There was no treatment then and Simon got ill with different things, but he was terrifically brave.
Late one night, I lost my leg driving Simon’s motorbike – I left it in Lewisham High St. I swerved and caught my leg on an unlit skip, and it ripped my leg off. The bike was undamaged but I lay with my leg hanging off.
I got out of hospital and went back to Simon. The doctor said, ‘If you had not had Simon to look after, you would have wallowed.’’
Simon Pettet and Dennis Severs at 18 Folgate St in the eighties
Portrait of Patrick Handscombe copyright © Lucinda Douglas-Menzies
Sad and lovely story, but 75 is too young to die for anyone, especially someone like Paddy.
So long, PADDY HANDSCOMBE (1950-2025) — R.I.P.
Love & Peace
Sad story altogether
Happy memories of Paddy and his cat Magnificat while living in Brick Lane and working on his Electrofluidics loudspeakers and on the FR 1 project with Tom Evans .
Also of his endless stories of the goings on at his home with his father the the Rector in Essex especially his very forgetful aunt .
My condolences for your loss. I remember reading about Paddy Handscombe in 2022. I enjoyed reading about him, as well as about all connected to Dennis Severs and his remarkable house. Truly a circle that will elicit interest for decades to come.
I love his CV: Sotheby’s (refined, exclusive); deep sea diving (butch); licensee of the largest sex club in Europe (just WOW).
Again, my condolences, and thank you for your ongoing record of these remarkable people.
Another of Paddy’s many interests was the Pianola, which he started to research in the late 1960s, and the Broadwood barless piano. That’s how I got to know him, first visiting his then Hanbury Street garret, and many times in Wivenhoe, the last about four weeks ago. We all have to go, but as he said to me he’d hoped for more than seventy five years. I’ll miss the conversations on pretty well unlimited subects with fantastic opinions expressed with great magnificence and utter confidence!
Thank you all for your kind comments. Our dearest Unc joins many friends and family in his eternal rest. Anna & adored him and always will.
I never got to see Paddy in Spitalfields although he talked about the place both at the time and later in a way that marked its significance in his life. I suppose looking back on it he put me in a different compartment of his varied and eclectic life .One in which there were no barriers of race, gender,politics,or sexuality. You had only to be original and in some way interesting to him.I first got to know him at Bristol University in 1970 .We met in Freshers Week and unlike many such meetings we stayed in contact for the rest of our lives.He was I suppose a “Young Fogey” before the term had been invented.He certainly stood out as a rather exotic figure at the time He introduced me to Gustav Klimt,Habit Rouge de Guerlain and Puccini played on a pair of remarkable electronic speakers whilst waxing eloquently about all of the above .I never lost my liking of either the art,music or the fragrance or my deep affection for him.He had a special gift for friendship and conversation.Visiting the Rectory in Fingrinhoe and his remarkable family was to be immersed in a uniquely Anglo Saxon and Anglican rural experience that was at the same time warm welcoming and accepting.Hamba Kahle Paddy! Go Well!
Well, Paddy, forgive me that we haven’t stayed in touch over the last ten years or so. Maybe it was your comment to me old Prussian that driving on the left side of the road would be more adapt to human nature…
Only kidding. I met you late in 1989, and you were a diver and I was a German unemployed diver. You said you’d like obsessed people – and that’s what I was. Obsessed.
We liked each other (maybe you even loved me… a bit), and we started to spent time together – in a short, very intense period. You tried to get me employed, finding a job in the diving industry in a country which was still shaken by Thatcherism. We drove all around England in your fancy Rolls Royce (I was even allowed to drive it!). And we started to look for a house where we could park our vehicles in the groundfloor and live upstairs. I was on the brink to move from Berlin to London.
Sometimes things happen which you can’t predict – I fell in love with another man in Berlin (Armin), and all these former plans crumbled to dust. I know that this was not so easy for you. But you met Simon which comforted me in the way that there was somebody. For you. But HIV didn’t care.
And we still kept in touch, We helped opening the “Hoist” together – I remember working with you behind the bar. You spent your 50th here with us in Berlin, and I can still hear you saying – the sheer size of it all! when we drove down former Stalin Allee.
But I have to say – that short chapter of my life with you was very intense and I will never forget it. And you. You could be quite a pain in the ass, but you were a generous, wonderful, loving man. And I am very sad that you left.
I only met him once in Spitalfields,but spoke on numerous occasions as part of the ”Hifi community”.Tom Evans referred me to him and i bought cables from him,aswell as him advising me with making some speakers,which i still use and enjoy to this day.That was back in the 90’s.I always found him very kind and generous with his knowledge.Just generally a pleasure to speak with and never losing patience with a youngster who couldn’t afford to buy his speakers(which are the bees knees),but pestered him for advice anyway! He sounds like he lived a full life,with many great stories to tell.RIP and thankyou Paddy.My Condolences to all relatives, close friends and all who had the pleasure of knowing him.