Quintin Jardine's blog

In my life there have been two people whom I’ve been proud to call my best friend. Neither made it past their mid70s and that makes me feel unworthy, almost a fraud.

Eddie Bell died yesterday, a great man, a unique human being who lived a life that was, well, larger than most.

He and I were born in neighbouring towns. We might even have been kin, for my mother’s family name was Bell, and my ancestors travelled from Colonsay two hundred years ago to work in the steel mills, as I believe his did to.

My uncle knew his older brother and yet he and I would probably never have met, had it not been orchestrated by a Spanish friend who knew nothing of this connection but put us at adjoining tables in his restaurant simply because I was a writer and he was a publisher. We hit it off, I became one of the first clients of his new agency, Michael Dobbs being the other, and our lives were linked from then on.

The last time we met was in June, in that same restaurant, when he told me of his diagnosis. I tried to be as encouraging as I could, and stayed positive for as long as I could but life can be, as they say, a real bastard.

Eddie’s obituaries are being written even now. This isn’t one. It’s a tribute to a man who lived an extraordinary, unimaginable life, enjoyed and embraced it in every way, and who will be missed more than even he could have imagined,