27th November 2022

Whether it’s yet more shootings in the US or wars between neighbouring countries, the news is depressing. It’s the lack of brotherly love that affects me the most.  So, I switched over to Sky Arts to watch a documentary about one of my favourite groups of the 60s, The Hollies. It brought back a memory of something very spiritual.  In 2008, whilst living in France, I got one of those calls we all dread. My dear brother Alan was dying. We dropped everything and rushed to the Birmingham Hospice where he lay in a coma. I held his hand and, hoping he could hear me, talked about our childhood and our shared love of The Hollies. Sadly, he never regained consciousness and within days he had passed away. Returning for the last time from the hospice, we went to the house he shared with my older brother, Robert. I sat in Alan’s chair next to the radio. Robert said he hated how quiet the house was and asked me to switch on the radio. Immediately the room was flooded with:  “It’s a long long road, from which there is no return. No burden is he to bear. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother…”