This is really sad - I met him when I did a day's workshop as a kid (about 25 years a go). He showed me round his personal collection too, I'll always remember suddenly coming face to face with many of the trees from his books, from the covers of (UK) "Bonsai" mag and even a Juniper I'd seen Hotsumi Terakawa demo on at the NEC expo the year before.
He was a genuinely nice bloke, I'd always wanted to do more workshops and will always regret not doing so.