Anthony Bristow attended Sutton Valence as a day boy after his parents moved to the village. In his spare time, he mowed the sports pitches and oversaw the stage lighting for drama productions. After reading Mechanical Engineering and Law at Corpus Christi College Cambridge he joined the Royal Corps of Signals, seeing service in Germany and Aden. On meeting his future wife Mary in 1966 he resigned from the Army and made a new career in the rapidly developing Information Technology industry where his work involved coordinating marketing, sales and royalties across Europe and the USA. He and his wife settled in Buckinghamshire, interrupted only by a very happy two-year assignment to Geneva in the 1980s. This gave many opportunities for the family to travel in Europe enjoying the art and architecture and developing a deep love of the mountains.

He enjoyed an active retirement, spending time with his extended family which included four grandchildren. Railways had always been one of his enthusiasms, and the perfect retirement job presented itself in the form of a Tour Manager for a rail holiday company. He escorted over fifty of these holidays, relishing the chance to use his encyclopaedic knowledge of European rail networks, and proving to be a resourceful and diplomatic leader.  All the while he and Mary continued regular European travel, often by car and always including time for art, old French churches, opera or concerts and of course picnics. He was a Governor of one of the local primary schools, edited the local amenity society newsletter and spent many happy hours on practical projects at home.

In early 2020 Anthony was found to have advanced prostate cancer. Despite multiple treatments he died in December 2022.