A tsunami is usually defined as a natural disaster. By contrast, the tsunami of tributes and messages of condolence that has engulfed the world of financial services this week, in response to the passing of Mike Morrison on 6 November, is a natural expectation.
A natural expectation in that Mike was known to so many people – myself included – who either work for pension providers, or as financial advisers within the UK.

Mike had an ‘omnipresence’ about him within pensions; he was always there – be it speaking at a seminar or large event, or writing articles and blogs for numerous media outlets.

And with that omnipresence came genuine industry-wide respect for his erudite views and comments, and for his eloquent and lucid explanations of how self-invested pensions were evolving; particularly within the arena of retirement options, as the nineties turned into the noughties, and then beyond the ‘credit crunch’ to the roll-out of the ‘pension freedoms’.

As someone who was tentatively taking their first steps in the mid-nineties to writing for the financial trade press, and presenting to financial advisers, as well as other professionals, Mike was such an inspiration to me, in demonstrating “this is the way to do it”. And, along with his peers like Steve Bee, Mike showed me how it was possible to weave both humour and pathos into a subject as enduringly dry as pensions – and show how an audience could genuinely enjoy a presentation about pensions.

But his mastery of both the presentation and the pen was not achieved through the sacrifice of other basic human qualities. Anyone who has met, or talked to Mike, or discussed a thorny technical pensions issue with him, will testify to his humility and down-to-earth good nature. Indeed, a word that I often used to describe Mike was “avuncular”; someone who you feel you could have a quiet word with, and know that it would not go elsewhere.

And all of this gave me - and no doubt countless others – a satisfying belief that Mike would always be around. Yes, we acknowledge deep down that no-one goes on forever – but not that Mike would leave us now. Not at the goddamn age of 55.

That is why this week’s news came as such a shock to me; because it was so unexpected. And I am struggling to process the thought that I will never read another tweet from Mike, never read another article or blog by him, and never get the chance to watch him in action, and then discuss punk rock afterwards.

My deepest and sincerest condolences go to his surviving wife and young daughter at this unimaginably hard time, as well as to his many colleagues at AJ Bell.

Clichés abound when people write about death, but in Mike’s case, I can genuinely state that his passing has left a void within the pensions technical world that I, and my fellow pension technicians around the country, will do our best to fill over the coming weeks, months and years, in Mike’s memory. That nigh-impossible task starts now.

Rest in peace, Mike, and thank you for everything. I just so wish that I did not have to write that particular sentence - now.

James Jones-Tinsley is the Self-Invested Pensions Technical Specialist for Barnett Waddingham LLP