Tech tycoon Mike Lynch showed huge resilience in the face of overwhelming odds, says one of his close friends in Suffolk. The death of the entrepreneur after the sinking of the luxury yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily was "just tragic" and "a great loss to the country", said businessman and ex-banker Henry Strutt - who like Dr Lynch is a deputy lieutenant of Suffolk. Mr Strutt was so upset after hearing of the disaster he spent two or three days feeling almost physically sick, he said.
"It's just horrific and the idea that for Angela (his wife) that she has lost a husband and a daughter." Mr Strutt - who has a farm at Stutton on the Shotley peninsula - said he first met Dr Lynch about 20 years ago at a charity auction in Suffolk and they struck up a friendship. Dr Lynch successfully bid for one of the lots at the charity auction - a few days in a house in Provence which belonged to Mr Strutt.
He went and stayed there and the two men and their wives became very close after that, he explained. "I was a good friend," he said. "He was probably the cleverest man I ever met but he wore his intellect very lightly.
He had this amazing knack of being able to explain very complicated things in ways that people could understand." Both were deputy lieutenants of Suffolk at the same time. Dr Lynch - who had a farm near Wickham Market - was appointed in 2012 and he retained the position until his death this week.
"He was very good company, very self-effacing - not at all aggressive bu.