There are people who enter your life and become part of who you are. My life has been in no small part shaped by almost 40 years of friendship with Clive. More than friendship. He was family.

I believe I found a significant part of my comic voice as a writer in letters to Guildford before he moved over here permanently. Making Clive laugh was a pure joy.

Over these last years he remembered bits of a truly remarkable life. Some I already knew, but he never ceased to surprise. He remembered running into the fields behind the house his family had in Spain when Nazis came through. He vividly remembered the first time he tasted pineapple. He remembered Spanish omelettes.

He was the only man who has ever successfully persuaded my wife to get on a roller coaster.

When he was in the military…yeah, he was in the military…he made the phone call that sent the British into the Suez Canal crisis. That tidbit was secondary to the memory of his commander going off to inform the Queen, and giving Clive a number to reach him in an emergency. He realized later that he was, for a time, in possession of the Queen’s private number.

He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, with classmates Albert Finney and Peter O’Toole. He was in the production of “Long John Silver” that was Patrick Stewart’s first paying job.

He understudied Spike Milligan, despite his friend Graham Stark’s warning. He went on for an inebriated Milligan, who pushed him off the stage for the curtain call.

God knows how many students he had, and how many lives he changed.

He was a kind, generous, and loving man. And he was loved. Toward the end he was finally able to say that he knew he was loved, but I don’t think he ever fully grasped the degree to which he was loved.

Dear God, how I love him. His absence will not change that.