He had a little home outside of London, in a place where rows of townhouses sat huddled together in neat lines and curves and gardens sat tamely contained behind low fences, an area rebuilt in an unnaturally orderly fashion after it was completely flattened in the Second World War.

It was New Year's eve and I was a weary traveller, having come up from Newhaven by way of London on hesitant trains after an uncomfortable journey from Dieppe on an oscillating ferry. With a good friend and his then-girlfriend, we welcomed the new year drinking tea made from unusually twiggy leaves, that they stuck to the edges of mugs while we drank.

The little house was a cheerful place, his friends were sweet, but in the room upstairs where the musical instruments were kept, there were sheaves of paper with incomplete lyrics or half-written songs.

None of the blue chairs in the kitchen, the warm yellow walls nor the lamps giving away their friendly glow would have ever guessed what turmoil we spoke of and kept at bay, day after day, in those years where hours blended together, and how we tried to keep each other intact by saying "Hello, how are you? Are you okay?" several times a day, carefully checking that existence had not stolen bodies away from our souls and that inner demons lying in constant wait — armed with spears of fears to tear us apart from inside-out — had not yet prevailed.