WHEN you grow up in a big family you take your brothers and sisters for granted. They're just there, a fact of life, there to squabble with, to vie with for parental attention, to compete against – but most of all, just to be there.
We were six siblings, perfect symmetry in two halves: two boys and a girl, then two boys and a girl. But our brother Pat, the second born, died this week. His daughter, Rachel, said he'd spent four years "telling cancer to eff off" , but sadly lost his fight.
He was always "Our Pat" to us, but became his preferred "Patrick" when he left Belfast, aged 18, for university in England. He moved in 1973, when the Troubles were at their height, and like many of his generation, he never returned to live here again.
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I can still remember the night he left, on the Liverpool boat, with a huge suitcase, topped with parcels of potato bread and soda farls, as well as a bottle of holy water from our auntie Margaret.
My mum and I went to the docks to see him off and when she started getting a bit tearful, watching his slight figure on the deck, I decided to lighten the mood. I put my hand on my stomach and shouted up: "But what about the baby?"
He swore an elderly couple glared at him for the entire eight-hour journey, and I got a clout from my ma for my cheek.
At Warwick University, he soon became involved in student politics, taking part in a celebrated occupation of the senate building to protest against accommodation charges. It was the beginning of a passion for leftist politics that he would never have developed had he stayed here.
Pat started his journalistic career on the Hillingdon Mirror in Uxbridge, though his Belfast accent sometimes confused locals. "It's someone from the Hillingdon Marrow," he once heard himself introduced.
His interest in politics intensified at his next job as a press officer for Ken Livingstone, then Margaret Thatcher's bete noire at the Greater London Council.
It was there that he worked closely with John McDonnell, later shadow Chancellor, who said of Pat: "There was never a time when he didn't show his kindness and gentle nature, and, of course, his sense of humour. Above all else, and this might seem unimportant, but in politics it's crucial and very rare, he was someone who I absolutely trusted – not just for his support, but more importantly for his judgment and his humanity."
A spell in Barcelona followed, where he filed articles for the Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Irish Times. He once told me the Telegraph were the best payers: "They understand capitalism."
He later set up home in London with the love of his life, Julia Unwin, and they had two daughters, Annie and Rachel. Unusually, for the time, Pat became a 'house husband', while Julia's career in the charity sector blossomed.
He once appeared on News at Ten, in an item about the 'new man', trying to spoonfeed his uncooperative toddler, Annie, in her high chair.
The family moved to York in 2007 when Julia became director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and went on to be awarded a damehood for her outstanding work.
Pat continued with his freelance journalism, co-founding an arts industry magazine, and also finding time to complete a Masters' degree in creative writing at the University of Limerick.
The course spurred him on to complete a novel, A Hard Place, set in pre-Troubles Northern Ireland, which told the story behind the decision to locate the second university at Coleraine, instead of Derry.
He'd written it while undergoing treatment for cancer, but cruelly, the illness took hold again as soon as he'd finished, robbing him of the chance to promote the novel as he'd planned.
We were six siblings, now we are five. And we will feel his loss forever.
