Geoff Follin will be a name recognisable to many interested in retro computer games. He's Mike and Tim Follin's brother, and co-composer of many great chip tunes on the Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Nintendo consoles.

Sadly Geoff passed away suddenly in May 2024 aged 58 from pancreatic cancer, having been diagnosed only a few weeks before.

He was a good mate - I used to work with the Follin brothers (Tim, Mike and Geoff) at Software Creations back in the 1980s, and despite us all going our separate ways, we all kept in touch, and tried to meet up a few times a year to chew the cud.

To say this was a shock was an understatement - we all last met up in January and he looked as fit as a fiddle. The page photo was taken then, with (from left to right) Mike, Kevin Edwards, Geoff, Tim and me.

He did all the right things, eating well and exercising. There was hope that it was a misdiagnosis, or that something could be done about it. There was always hope.

From Pancreatic Cancer UK:

How am I going to raise money for them?

My aim is to run the Manchester 10K in May 2025 in a respectable time of around an hour.

This will be a bit of a challenge for me. I used to enjoy running, and last ran the Manchester 10K five years ago. I've been affected bad by Covid, catching it bad early on, suffering from Long Covid for a couple of years, and putting on some weight since.

I hope that you can sponsor me in tribute of Geoff and for this good cause.