Porter and Co 1955-59 director Tesco Stores 1959-64 assistant managing director 1964-70 deputy chairman 1970-73

Porter and Co 1955-59; director, Tesco Stores 1959-64, assistant managing director 1964-70, deputy chairman 1970-73, managing director 1972-73, chairman 1973-85, president 1985-90; Kt 1983; married 1949 Shirley Cohen (DBE 1991; one son, one daughter); died Tel Aviv 20 March 2005
Leslie Porter was a notably successful chairman of Tesco. Leslie Pasamount (Leslie Porter), businessman: born London 10 July 1920; managing director, J. Davey appeared on the television programme Schofield’s Quest to try to source a more recent sample of the plant – sparking an interest in the media that stayed with him for the rest of his life.Nick Davey was passionate about teaching and inspiring a new generation of neuroscientists. He was also passionate about Tony Hancock, British sit-coms and trains (and what caused them to crash).

He travelled the world to deliver lectures, but he was happiest at home with his family – he married relatively late – in their thatched cottage in Quainton, the Buckinghamshire village where he had always dreamt of living.His life was just starting to take off when he was killed in a car crash. His research had never looked more promising, and two weeks earlier he had celebrated his adored daughter’s second birthday.Cicely Davey. Leslie Porter was a notably successful chairman of Tesco. In 1994, Barbara Woodhouse’s daughter asked him to research a plant from the Amazon rainforest which she claimed had cured her mother’s diabetes.

Initial investigations by Davey – himself a recently diagnosed insulin- dependent diabetic – in collaboration with Kew Gardens showed no results. He gained a BSc in Zoology at Bedford College, London, and a PhD at Imperial College. There followed a number of post-doctoral posts at Imperial College and the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, culminating in a senior lectureship at Imperial.In the mid-1980s, Nick Davey started to become interested in the neuroscience surrounding spinal injury. The National Spinal Injuries Centre was only a mile away from his home and he felt a particular empathy with the spinally injured. In 1986 he became an honorary research physiologist at the centre, and began the first of a series of collaborative initiatives between it and Imperial College.Davey wanted to see his work helping people. An engineer at heart, he designed many simple yet ingenious methods of automatically heating and cooling the hen-houses and feeding the hens.