My friend Richard Porter, who has died aged 80, was a former chief executive of Sightsavers, an international charity working to prevent avoidable blindness. Then, from 2006, he served as director of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, an alliance of more than 150 global eye health organisations working together for a world in which everyone has access to eye care.
He was born in Felixstowe in Suffolk, the son of Maynard Porter, company secretary of a building firm, and his wife, Irene. Dick was a sporty, clever child. From St Joseph’s college in Ipswich, he went on to study economics at the City of London College , where he met Sue Early, whom he married in 1965.
