Zen had been in intensive care at West Middlesex Hospital, but had been taken off the critical list midweek. He had been conscious and coherent to the point of demanding to see proofs of the artwork for the upcoming Bishops third album (recording of which had been completed only a few days before his accident) and insisting that the band carry on with a temporary replacement until he was fit enough to rejoin them. However, he'd been experiencing trouble breathing, and what was expected to be a fairly routine operation was planned. It was expected that Zen would be transferred to an ordinary ward after his operation, and then released to convalesce at home until he was ready to go back to work.

Unfortunately, there were unforeseen complications. Zen died on the operating table, and on Sunday his many friends and colleagues learned that they had lost a fine musician and a fine man.

Zen had been an accountant before he got bitten by the rock and roll bug, and the legacies of that period of his life were a sound head for business, a few flash threads and the Aston Martin that was his pride and joy. He'd put together The Count Bishops (later to abbreviate their name simply to The Bishops) in collaboration with Mike Spenser and flown ace picker Johnny Guitar in from the States to join the band: a tough, tight, boisterous R&B unit that had joined the pub circuit around the same time as the then-new punk bands.

In partnership with the band's then manager, Pete Mannheim, Zen had opened up a P.A. hire company which boasted one of the best rigs in town, and he ran the P.A. company with the same blend of enthusiasm and professionalism that he brought to everything he touched. He wrote some of The Bishops' best material and sang 'Train Traln', the most haunting number in their repertoire, and his crunching, relentless rhythm guitar drove the band along with both power and sensitivity.

He was also much in demand as a sound man, and any group who rented his P.A. hit the jackpot when - if The Bishops weren't working - Zen came along in person to mix their sound. He'd dabbled in record production, mixing a few of The Bishops' tracks and taking care of production duties on the Blast Furnace records, and was shaping up to be a hell of a good producer. Zen was, blessed with both a fine ear and the ability to coax and coerce musicians into giving of their best.

If you were a friend of Zen's, you could rely on him for help and advice whenever you needed it. Whether it was a few tips on how to fix an amplifier or repair a guitar, or whether you needed a shoulder to cry on when your band broke up. Zen would get on the case and help out. His experience, humour, compassion and strength of character were attributes that he placed at the disposal of anybody who needed them, and he did it without a second thought: simply as part of his responsibility as a human to other humans.

That don't mean Zen was a sucker for anybody. He was shrewd and canny, and a sharp and precise judge of character: plus his business acumen came in handy when The Bishops had a long run of management problems. If he hadn't been a dedicated musician, he could've distinguished himself as a manager, a producer, a sound engineer. He was a talented man, was Zen.

He'd gotten his nom de guitar during a riotous session at Pathway Studios when a combination of exhaustion and booze had led him to assume a recumbent position during the mixing. Someone mumbled "Look at Zen on de floor", and Zen was known as Zenon De Fleur for ever after.

Writing obituaries is a wrench even when you're writing about someone you didn't know: whose music you've admired from afar. Zen was a fine guitarist and songwriter and I admired him for that, but I admired him also for his dazzling variety of skills, for his professionalism, for his enthusiasm, for his resilience, for the way that he expended his energies as good-humouredly and wholeheartedly on the behalf of others as for himself.

Plus he was my friend; he helped me a lot, taught me a lot. I enjoyed his company...what can I say? I knew him well and I wish I'd known him better. For everyone who knew him, for everyone who enjoyed his music, for every one of the bands that he helped out with his expertise and his time and his facilities, for his family, for The Bishops and all of their friends and fans, let's leave it with this:

Zenon De Fleur will be remembered. With love and a sense of loss.

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