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I want to share something a bit personal and painful. Not normally my style on here but there’s a good reason as you’ll see towards the end of this thread. First I need to introduce you to my friend Bertie.
Bertie is from Szolnok, a town in the middle of the Great Hungarian Plain. For the last 13 years the U.K. has been his home. We met a few years ago when our mutual friend @JimboBootler brought him to a concert I was doing. As far as first impressions go, I don’t think...
...the one he made on me could be bettered. He was somehow confident without being overbearing, gentle without a hint of shyness and, above all, funny as hell. And quick. In a second language. On paper, I should have hated him for this, but this was impossible. The guy was just..
...ineluctably likeable. He loved puns and word games. We played scrabble (he was infuriatingly good). I’d like to just keep talking about how wonderful he was, but the repeated use of the past tense is dragging me towards the painful reason for talking about him...
... in the first place. Bertie died a few days ago from a pulmonary embolism. He was 36. It came out of the blue. I last spoke to him two days before, on one of the social video call apps we’ve all become so used to in these horrid times. Myself, James and him all posed trivia...
...questions for one another for hours, and it was one of the most enjoyable times of lockdown I’ve had. James was his best friend (they were very close, see picture) and next of kin in the U.K. and all the administrative burdens following someone’s death has fallen to him, at...
...a time when we are all so isolated. He’s been incredible, and I know that everyone who knew and loved Bertie is so proud of him, just as we all know Bertie would be too. As well as liaising with doctors and coroners and keeping us all informed, James has had the difficult task
... of talking to Bertie’s family in Hungary, breaking the news to them, often with the help of translators. Bertie was an only child and his parents want to have him home so they can say goodbye. This is obviously complicated in the current situation so there will have to be...
... a cremation here and his ashes sent to Hungary. We want to relieve the already enormous burden for them by raising the money to get Bertie’s ashes repatriated. James has set up a fundraiser where you can donate whatever you’re able to, to help a mother say goodbye to her son,
..and to make an already dark time a little easier to bear for his family. I have 2000 followers here, and if everyone either gave £2, or retweeted to someone who could, we would be able to do this easily. Thank you so much for reading this far, from me and for Bertie Horváth.
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