Christmas, even for atheists, is a time for reflection. So, let me tell you something about my friend Alan, who died a few weeks ago.
Apart from my Mum and Dad, and Kerri and the children, Alan was the most important person in my life. I say ‘was’ even though I despise the way that death robs us of the present tense and ‘is’ becomes brutally replaced by the past. Alan will remain in the here and now for me, not least because I can barely remember the ‘before Alan’ time: that time when he wasn’t part of my life.
He was my friend. My best friend. It’s that simple. It just worked. My always-there-when-I-needed-him friend. A-pick-up-from-where-we-left-off friend, even when we hadn’t seen each other for maybe weeks or months. He was, in fact, the perfect friend. Someone who knows everything there is to know about you and still likes you. Moreover, someone with the unerring ability to be at your side in a crisis, even before you had thought of reaching out for help.
We met on September 4 1967, 57 years ago. Our first day at the Royal School, Armagh. I, quite literally, bumped into him. We had been allocated adjoining lockers and I was struggling to open mine. I heaved and heaved until it shot open with so much force that it slammed into the head of the boy beside me. Who I hadn’t even noticed was there.
There was a loud ouch of pain, followed by a word which I can’t use in this column. A head appeared from behind the locker door, upon which were a pair of glasses which had been skewed entirely to one side of his face (a bit like Eric Morecambe). And topping off this image was a mass of hair which would accurately have been described by any hairdresser as big, bold and boisterous. Think Noddy Holder from Slade.
“I’m sorry,” I said, albeit with little conviction, because I was trying not to laugh at the state of him. With the forefinger of his right hand, he adjusted his glasses, brought me into focus, shrugged his shoulders and replied, “That’s OK. Nothing broken.” I nodded, slammed my locker shut and walked off: all the time thinking, what a weirdo.
He was my friend. My best friend. It’s that simple. My always-there-when-I-needed-him friend. Someone who knows everything there is to know about you and still likes you
A couple of hours later we were assigned the classroom for those in the 1A intake. I looked across a room in which I recognised nobody I knew. And then I saw the big-haired weirdo again. He was standing by a desk, pointing to an empty one beside it and beckoning me over.
Having checked the room again, I went over and then I noticed the bruise on his forehead. “Sorry again,” I mumbled. “At least I’ll remember my first day,” he laughed: “I’m Alan, by the way.” “I’m Alex.” And that, to paraphrase Captain Renault from Casablanca, was the beginning of our beautiful friendship.
I saw him for the last time in early October. We had our usual random conversation, including my advice to him to get a pair of the gaudy trousers worn by stilt-walking clowns, so that he could cover the birdcage device he was forced to wear after breaking his ankle – as well as keeping his leg warm.
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Our final few minutes were to prove particularly poignant. He mentioned that he had heard me on the radio that morning and wondered if I had some sort of commission for slipping a Sherlock Holmes quote into every piece of political commentary.
I don’t. But with politics rarely changing here I like to pick quotes, often at random, and see if I can apply them to what’s happening. That morning’s one had been “There is nothing so instructive as the observation of trifles”. It had something to do with the Secretary of State, although I can’t remember what. Alan’s last words to me – and it’s astonishing the clarity with which you remember words that you never imagined would be the last ones – were, “I’ll keep listening out for them. See you soon.”
The Sherlock Holmes/Dr Watson friendship is, I think, the greatest one in any literature in any language. Holmes once noted: “Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.” And that’s what Alan remains for me. Always there over almost 60 years. Always there to raise my spirits when I was in one of my darker phases of depression. The first person to notice what a difference Kerri had made to me, even before he had met her. He instinctively knew I was happy in a way I had never been genuinely happy before. He was and is my fixed point. My lifelong friend. My best friend.
Happy Christmas to all of you.