My aunt classed herself as a Buddhist. She didn't believe in material possessions, apparently. Now she's dead I can tell you, she fucking loved stuff. My god. We keep finding stuff. Floor length beautifully embroidered robes, gems, cups made of silver, dipped in gold.

Bits of things never made. Lions faces. Silver discs. Pearls, every pearl imaginable, pink, cream, white, grey. Drawings. The most beautiful drawings you've seen. You'd think they were drawings of things she'd seen, but they were ideas when they went on paper. Most came to life.

Spoons with gilded bowls. Coins. So many coins, everywhere. Candles, oud, burners. Jewellery. Some she made, some she must have been mending. She's had some of it for so many years the owners won't be here anymore. Headed notepaper, headed postcards. Her trinkets.

She had a Ganesh who sat on her boxes of medication faithfully for years. Then a little sheep who dangled his feet from her bedside table. Then there was Sharkey. He was a cuddly toy, who knows where he came from, a fish, lovingly named Sharkey. He was a whale.

There are lots of stories, most I don't know. But one I loved, was the story of a bar called "VATS". It opened on lambs conduit street in London in the 80s. My aunt appeared early on in the game. She spoke well, very well. She appeared after a party.

She was dressed as a pirate, it was a fancy dress party. I imagine dripping in jewels. She ordered a bottle of champagne. They only had a Magnum. She offered to pay by cheque, which they accepted. That cheque probably bounced for a decade. I

I wheeled her to VATS about 3 years ago on the day it closed. We sat at a table on the pavement as the last of their furniture was taken away. We drank the last of their booze as they retired to the country, and ate avocados with teaspoons, with lea and perrins.

She knew the heritage of every clinician who treated her. She always learned their Christian name. We used to get furious with her because she'd never be able to tell us what they said about her health, but would always know where they grew up and about their family.

So many people exploited her good nature. For a long time I thought she was naive, maybe exploited is the wrong word. Eventually I came to the conclusion she just wanted to help people. If she felt they didn't have the advantages she'd had, she wanted to give them some.

She made stuff for so many people. Prince Philip would know her if he saw her. A few years ago I was working for her, and we made 16 mythical dolphin lamps for a client abroad. The payment to the foundry wasn't small. I made the transfer, used the product name as a reference.

It was "dolphin lamps". The bank confiscated the funds and accused us of trading live mammals. We got it back eventually.

I loved it when a sentence started with "don't tell your mother but..."