Goodbye Phil

I’ve been hesitant to post anything about Phil’s death mostly because I just didn’t know what to write and had little appetite to try such was the shock of his passing. Like many of you,

I suspect, I just have that inescapable feeling of sadness knowing that this person I loved as a friend is no longer with us and I won’t get to see or interact with him again. I spent a lot of time hanging out with Phil when I was younger, less so as the years went by. However, with Phil, friendship was like money in the bank. A couple of years back, I had lent Phil some music equipment and he wanted to return it. So, he picked me up and we went to a storage place to get it and in classic Phil style what should have taken ½ an hour ended up taking half a day. He was on great form and I really think you got the distilled essence of Phil just driving around with him. The years fell away and we may as well have been driving around in one of those old Fiats of his. He didn’t change and rather than anything music related it’s those something and nothing times with him shooting the breeze that I will remember most fondly. You could have a good conversation with Phil. He’d always throw some curveball topic into the mix and with Phil it wasn’t just one-way, he’d listen and have an interesting take on whatever you might say. He was also very honest not least about himself. Yet whilst he was no doubt a great raconteur, to me a lot of Phil’s charm was in all those non-verbal mannerisms which peppered any exchange with him and which I’m sure many of you will recognise. I don’t know whether it came from his Spanish side but there was that whole repertoire of exaggerated comic facial expressions and pregnant pauses which were such a part of Phil being Phil. That and the famous smile. Speak to Phil on the phone and you were missing half the show. For example, if you bumped into Phil there would inevitably be the open palmed ‘here he is’ style greeting matched with that mock shock expression of his as if you appearing in front of him was the greatest thing that could have happened at that moment. Or that classic wide-eyed open-faced look of Phil’s as he told you a story. His eyes fixed on yours and getting wider and the eye brows raising as the anecdote moved along before ending with a little silent pause and that expression which dared you believe the truth could be any other than what you’d just heard. Funniest of all there was the response you would get if you brought up someone Phil was less than keen on. Just a raised eyebrow, the slow Phil nod and a quizzical ‘oh yeah’. If he substituted the ‘oh yeah’ with their name and that Phil look then your chosen subject really wasn’t getting back up off the canvas. Being such a car man, this whole idiom was also adapted for in car communication. Micro glances thrown your way between steering duties and the classic Phil dismissal all the more devastating when with eyes fixed straight ahead it got translated into an almost imperceptible nod and flutter of eyebrow. At a traffic light he’d be unbridled again and next thing you knew he’d be giving you that full beam Phil smile, a high five and a “Good to see you man!” And you know what? In that instant you’d completely forget that he’d turned up an hour and a half late before informing you that your twenty-minute journey was going to be turned upside down by some convoluted pick up or drop off chore involving a friend of his you’d never met but who he was insisting that you knew. “No, T. You definitely know him. Definitely. He knows you. He talks about you.” And you definitely didn’t know this person but there was no point pressing the issue. In the same way as there was no point arguing with the repeated assertion “It’s cool” and that against all the available evidence (and laws of physics) you were still going to make your original schedule. By this point it was too late you were officially on Phil time and that was its own reward. Looking back now what I’m particularly struck by is how much of what Phil did was aimed at making other people comfortable and feeling good about themselves. He was king of the big up. He’d always find a way to boost you or give you props. That never changed with Phil literally from the first day I met him the to the last. And to be honest, what also never changed was my slight discomfort when he’d do that because as a child of the seventies I am hard wired to deal with insults and abuse not compliments and people saying nice things. Compliments? No thanks mate. So, I always sort of padded it. What I wish now is that I’d found some way to acknowledge the thoughtfulness and generosity that lay behind that particular habit of his and so many of the other things he did. Maybe once have batted the compliment back in his direction, looked him in the eye and said: Thanks Phil, you are a good person and a good friend. So, thank you and goodbye my old friend. My life was made better for having had you in it and my heart truly goes out to those who will feel your absence the most.