I heard the dreadful news this morning, when his daughter, Ellen, called me to tell me that he had passed at 4.10am today.

I hadn't written about his illness here before, because I wasn't sure how long he had. He suffered from pancreatic cancer, which had travelled to his liver and his bowels. He was only told a month ago, that he was ill. He went into hospital because the doctors had said his potassium levels were very low and they wanted to keep an eye on it and to do some tests. Well then they gave him the bad news that he was terminal. It was an awful blow to me, and our daily calls suddenly stopped. I had noticed how much weight he was losing each week, and I suspected that he had a serious illness, although not what he actually had.

Well his daughter has been calling me daily to keep me up to date with his progress. Until the day before yesterday, he was awake and talking, but then he fell asleep (being on strong morphine to ease the pain) and she knew that he wasn't going to wake up again. I admire her strength so much. She went up daily, even though she hated to see her dad becoming someone she didn't recognise. He was about 5 stone by the time he went. She had a strength not many have. Mickey would have been so very proud of her.









I will miss him terribly as he was my best friend, and we talked every day for over 12 years. I could say whatever I wanted, I could trust him with anything. I just hope that he is with his late wife, mother and father - and is having a dram of whiskey.

I'm really sorry to have to inform you of this, it was very hard to write but I hope you will forgive me for not informing you of his illness, he didn't want anyone to know.