Celebrating our Banksy

When we got the diagnosis – glioblastoma, grade 4 brain tumour – we were hysterical, almost euphoric. We clung tightly to each other, engulfed by feelings as powerful as those of the heady days of early romance. We were strong, we were alive, held aloft by a wave of adrenaline. We told family and friends, we held our loved ones, we celebrated the strength of the bonds between us. We knew we could deal with this. There were tears, but there was also laughter. When he said to the oncologist that he felt guilty about using so much of the NHS’s money and she replied, ‘Well, let’s face it, you’re never going to be drawing your pension,’ there was shock from me, but a loud guffaw from him. He celebrated the fact that he had worked alongside the Nobel-prize-winning inventor of the CT scanner, the machine that now revealed the state of the inside of his head.

We went through our finances and paperwork, updated our wills, decided that, after twenty years together, we would get married. It was the perfect time; our children were now old enough to witness our formal union. We went to the registry office – ‘Is this it, then, just the four of you?’ – and for pizza before the train home. Two months later we had the "real" wedding in the circle bar of a lovely old theatre in a place that means a great deal to us. We booked a big house for the weekend and sent out invites – ‘Come and celebrate with us.’ Just a small "do" with our family, in which our daughter talked about us, which was beautiful and moving and from which I remember in particular the words "waterproofs" and "bird watching". Our son played guitar, Duke Ellington’s marvellous Don’t Get Around Much Anymore. Our sisters and my dad all spoke, and we listened to a recording of his dad playing stride piano. One of the barmen commented with a grin that he was "surfing the love". We all were. It was exciting. I think I smiled all day. After the ceremony, we toured the theatre and had lunch nearby. We strolled to the pier in the sunshine. We talked and we laughed. My dad recited Stanley Holloway’s The Lion and Albert. We had a rainbow wedding cake.

We made plans together for what would happen after there was no more "we". No funeral service, but a "do" in the village hall – ‘Tell people that you’re laying on wine and they’ll come.’ And they did. Our sisters spoke again and his nephew read words that he had written when he was first in hospital, knowing there was something in his head that shouldn’t be there, but not knowing then what it was. An old friend and work colleague stood up and told us things we had never heard before. We listened to John Martyn and Fiddler’s Green. I spoke. I had tried to rehearse but hadn’t managed to get through it without crying. When I got up and turned around to begin, I was amazed by how many people were there – standing room only. He would have been amused by that. He would have laughed. He would have been touched by it, too. It would have been just the sort of evening he enjoyed. A little to eat, a little more to drink and a chance for a good old blether. I got through what I wanted to say – the whole thing, in one go. I spoke out, I felt strong, I was proud of myself for standing up and saying how I felt. How I felt about him. How I still feel about him. It made me happy to do that, to celebrate his life. And I’m still celebrating. It’s an old cliché, but I would rather have had the time with him than not to have had it. That diagnosis reinforced the intensity of our feelings for one another and the strength of our family. Our celebration story didn’t end when he died.

He was a scientist, artist, hill walker, occasional writer whose "guidelines for a happy life" have been shared far and wide, lover of nature and of Scotland, surprised embracer of village life. He was kind, generous, funny, ranty, loyal, open, caring and big-hearted, dishevelled, long-haired, the archetypal boffin, interesting and interested in everything. As he said, ‘We are the stuff of stars,’ and his star burned so very, very brightly. We will celebrate him forever.

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