Goodbye Glen Carrigan

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Glen Carrigan, a well respected activist in humanist and secular circles has left us too soon. I didn’t know him well, and don’t have all the details concerning his death, but I thought I’d pay my respects here.

I met Glen in May1 during a double recording of The BBC’s The Big Questions  (pictured together above). Glen blogged about that experience, as well as many other things of interest over at his ‘Homoscientificus’ site. We had a few hours break in between episodes so decided to chance a local Warrington pub for some lunch. He left an impression. Funny, charming, knowledgeable and passionate about his activism and humanism. We were both giddy at managing to sneak in some microphone time at the end of our first recording and bonded over having both studied at UCLAN. I got the distinct impression he’d studied much harder though.

He struck me as someone who had the intelligence and personality to achieve great things. I felt optimistic about the future of scepticism knowing that someone like Glen was running UCLAN’s Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Society. He handed me his business card and explained that he wasn’t sure whether to have a serious card, or a light-hearted one – so settled on a double-sided solution. Smart.

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My thoughts are with his friends and family.

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  1. Albeit largely trivial, in the interest of accuracy I’ve just noticed my chronology is a little off. I actually met Glen for the first time in April at QED Con. Though I remember our conversation there clearly, I wrongly ordered that event in my memory as coming later

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