It was 25 years ago this month that I got the worst phone call of my life. My aunt Margaret, who was like a grandmother to me, was sobbing when she rang to tell me that Chris, my only immediate sibling, had died suddenly and unexpectedly in hospital following what we thought was a routine exploratory operation to find out why he was losing breath to the point of unconsciousness.
Despite being a non-smoker and an otherwise fit and healthy type, his skin looked grey and he had aged considerably when I saw him a few months earlier. I even joked that his clean living wasn’t doing him any favours, never realising that would be the last time I would see him.