Oxfam Bookshop, Morningside Road, Edinburgh

My friend Stephen died today after a long battle with cancer, a battle which at one point Stephen had come out of on top, but sadly cancer got to him in extra time. His passing was not unexpected but no less a shock. My thoughts go out to his wife Tessa and my thanks to the kindness shown by the staff at both the Western General Hospital and the St Columba’s Hospice.

I knew Stephen from working (on my part I use the word loosely) at the Oxfam bookshop on Morningside Road. Stephen had been the shop manager for many years, I started volunteering there a couple of mornings a week four years ago. We hit it off from the start, the only thing on which we disagreed was Dexys Midnight Runners. He hated them with a vengeance, whereas I recognised them for the inspired musical visionaries that they clearly are.

Departure(s), Julian Barnes, Jonathan Cape, 2026

Stephen was a big fan of author Julian Barnes, a particular favourite being his kaleidoscopic portrait of French surgeon Samuel Jean de Pozzi, The Man In The Red Coat. Barnes’ latest book was published in February. (It will be his last; he says this on page 9 and, in case the reader thinks this is a mere fictional device, repeats it in the closing paragraphs. He is now 80 years old, done 15 novels, won the Booker, fair play to the lad.) Stephen never got a chance to read it. In some respects perhaps a blessing as Departure(s) reflects on the trajectory of life, perceptions of memory, final farewells and the author’s own cancer. Despite that, it’s an incredibly uplifting read.

Barnes says that he has “found [himself] thinking a lot in recent years about how we remember the dead, about how quickly memory becomes myth and once-living people are turned into a set of anecdotes (but how could it be otherwise?).”

Stephen was much more than a set of anecdotes but here’s three. For now, today, it’s all I can do.

Breaking Protocol

Maybe 15 years ago, a bit longer? It doesn’t matter. I was living in Romannobridge at the time. That doesn’t really matter either except that, in retrospect, it would have been quicker for me to drive to IKEA at Loanhead and buy another Billy bookcase. Instead, I decided to create space on my existing bookshelves by filling an orange plastic packing case with books I thought I’d never read again, driving to Edinburgh and offering them to the Oxfam bookshop on Morningside Road.

With four years’ matchday experience under my belt, I now know this is against protocol. More than 20 books, I should have phoned in advance. But the friendly Irishman in the Hüsker Dü t-shirt who greeted me that Saturday afternoon was happy enough to accept my donation. Indeed, crouching down to inspect what was in there, he said that I was clearly a reader of discernment. Laughing, I said I wasn’t, basically I’d read anything (except Lee Child). At which point he stood up and - making no effort to lower his voice so that customers in the shop wouldn’t hear - said “No, this is great. You wouldn’t believe some of the shite we get in here.”

Honesty was one of Stephen’s greatest qualities.

More Shite (Mostly)

Like all retail shops reopening in the spring of 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oxfam bookshop had a limitation on the number of customers inside the shop at any one time. To facilitate this, Stephen would often be on the door, counting them all in, counting them all back out, in a sort of reverse tribute to BBC war correspondent Brian Hanrahan.

One Saturday morning, waiting to get in, I got chatting to him although at this stage I don’t think I knew his name (nor he mine). I asked him what he’d been up to during lockdown, while the shop had been closed. He said he’d been reading and walking. Later, much later, as I got to know him, I suspect these activities may have been supplemented with red wine drinking and smoking roll ups. Basically, all the good things in life.

When there was space for me to go into the shop, he mentioned that there had been a good donation of vinyl, I should have a look. After five minutes of rifling through the racks, it struck me that the selection merely confirmed what Stephen had said all these years earlier about the quality of donations. It was only out of a feeling of obligation that I bought something.

On the way out I told Stephen that I didn’t agree with his assessment of the recent stack of vinyl. His face broke into a smile: “Yeah, but you looked. And I see you bought something.”

His sense of humour. It was a joy working with him for that alone.

Laughter, Chocolate & Salvador Dali

The last time I saw Stephen was a few weeks back, in hospital. He wasn’t well - why else would he be in hospital? - but he was on good form, laughing, eating chocolate, talking about the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres.

I’d been told before that his memory was failing. So, I was genuinely taken aback that on arriving he immediately said, “How is Andrea?” He had only met my wife once, when she called into the shop with her friend Siwei, another volunteer. As I walked home from the hospital that day, I realised that every time I turned up for a shift or just called in to the shop to see Stephen, he would always - and I mean always - make a point of asking after Andrea.

If Stephen were a stick of seaside rock, he would have K-I-N-D-N-E-S-S carved through him. Honesty, humour and kindness, it’s not a bad combination.

And Love For All

& Love For All, The Lilac Time, Fontana, 1990

And that album I bought out of a feeling of obligation? And Love for All by The Lilac Time, released in 1990. I played it again today, it’s an absolute gem, perfect English pop, shot through with psychedelia. And if it hadn’t been for that friendly Irishman in the Hüsker Dü t-shirt, I never would have discovered it.

I’ll miss you, Stephen. Godspeed.

Nobody grows old
We just crease and fold
Like the laundry
Nobody will die
We’re hung out to dry
Like the laundry

The Laundry
The Lilac Time (1990)

The Man in the Hüsker Dü T-Shirt

Burn It Down