Goodbye to our co-founder

It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of our co-founder, Daniel Nabarro. Daniel had recently struggled with Alzheimer’s and, having contracted shingles in January, deteriorated in health, dying on 16^thApril.

Daniel was hugely creative and had a gift for cutting through the noise to approach matters in a different way. He was the one to come up with the concept of Nip in the Bud – highlighting the positive benefit early diagnosis of mental health issues could bring. He woke up one morning with the name fully formed, having worked for eight years helping the charity OCD Action.

His insight came from watching his beloved daughter struggle with unknown demons from the age of nine until 16. Daniel had been advised to research “obsessions” and “compulsions”. At this time there were few resources to tap into and little information online. In fact, Daniel found there were only two pages about the topic on the entire internet. But when they did get their daughter to somebody specialising in OCD, it took just one minute to get that crucial diagnosis.

Daniel came to the role of charity co-founder via a hugely varied career. He graduated in Electrical Sciences at Cambridge, worked at GEC, set up the company Inter-City paging in 1982 which developed an alpha numeric pager (the precursor to texting), recognised the importance of the emerging world of the web and in 1998 set up the pioneering online lingerie company, Figleaves. Daniel was known for creating a stellar team, was instrumental in building an experienced trustee’s board and for spotting the importance of film use on the web.

During the three years since the foundation of Nip in the Bud, Daniel and Kitty worked tirelessly to help parents, teachers and carers identify potential mental health problems in young children. Even during his illness, Daniel was present at most meetings, by Kitty’s side. Without his vision and determination, Nip in the Bud wouldn’t be what it is or where it is today.