The inadequacy of words for this legend...

I first met Stevie at the Mistral hotel in Crete in 2007. Serendipity and good fortune meant that we met a great deal of wonderful people on that holiday who became important to us both. We became inseparable and developed a close friendship which endured.
We travelled together on trips all over in this country and abroad, with or without other Mistralites. He met my family and friends in Newcastle,  I met his in Suffolk. (His family was incredibly important to him and he was so proud of them.).He became one of my best friends for life.
A quietly intelligent, wise man, and I would turn to him for advice and guidance, yet our relationship was built upon our sense of humour, wit, sarcasm, and unrelentingly and unwaveringly taking the micky out of each other, publicly and privately.  You can only do this if you love one another dearly, and we did.

Stevie was an unfailingly generous man and a comic genius. Everyone who met him couldn't help to be blessed and feel better for spending time in his company.

I last saw him on Christmas Day, and spoke to him a few days before he passed.
Stevie is unrepeatable,  with a magic that was all of his own. I said to his daughter Julie  the other day, if you collected every tear we cried laughing at something Stevie said or did, we'd all have our own swimming pools! Corny I know, but true.
There will always be a Stevie shaped hole in my life now, such was the impact of the man.
R.I.P. my friend, and thank you seems so inadequate for the memories you have left me with. Its oft said, but you Stevie, cannot be forgotten. xxxx.
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