Phan Oneshots

In Memorial

A Farewell: Phil Lester, Radio One DJ and internet personality.

Daniel Howell pays tribute to his co-host and life partner Phil Lester, and recalls his final moments.

I knew almost from the moment I met Phil that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. We fitted together like macaroni and cheese (despite Phil’s hatred for the dairy delicacy), and I just couldn’t imagine existence without his calm, steady presence at my side. I couldn’t imagine shopping without having to drag him away from the confectionary aisle or waking up to anything other than the sound of his soft footsteps padding down the hall as he got up for breakfast. He was always up before me, and I knew that would never change, just like I was always the one to wrap him in a blanket when he fell asleep on the sofa watching late night murder mysteries on ITV. We drifted between lovers and friends and soul mates and brothers but we never settled on a name. We were together, and that was enough.

The BBC lifted us from our tiny flat in Manchester and allowed us to be more than either of us ever thought we could, and for that, I know, Phil was so grateful. A single Christmas Day broadcast lead to a forty year career that took us all over the world together. I’m not sure where we would have ended up without it, but as this is my goodbye to presenting too I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who believed in us and spotted the potential neither of us knew was there. I have no desire to step in front of a camera without Phil by my side, but I feel as if we achieved everything we wanted to achieve.

I never ceased to be amazed by the things Phil achieved. The charity he set up from our kitchen one morning and the academy for creative arts that bears his name. He was always my rock to cling to, the one to drag me out of bed when I’d slept passed my alarm and to make sure I was presentable and on time to every important meeting. He pushed me back into theatre and onto the big screen more than once, but I feel much of what he has done will never truly be appreciated. He was the shoulder to cry on for all our friends, the agony aunt and the support group and the counselling service all in once. He was the godfather of seven different children and definitely the better loved uncle. Phil was like no one else and he touched everyone he ever met.

It was spring, four years ago when I was walking down a street in East London feeling sorry for myself and talking to Phil on my phone.

“There are so many things I’ve never done that I wanted to do,” I said.

“Like what?”

“You know, I never learned French, I never studied drama, I never got married.”

“Why don’t we get married?” he asked. “I’ll meet you in the middle on my way home. In Manchester, maybe. How about tomorrow?”

“Um – don’t you think tomorrow is too soon?”

“No, I don’t.”

And so the next day we met once again at Manchester train station and got married in an old friend’s back garden on a Saturday afternoon in black jeans and loose shirts.

I guess there are lots of ways to get married. Some people marry someone they hardly know – which can work out, too. When you marry your best friend of many years, there should be another name for it. The thing that surprised me about getting married was the way it altered time, and added a tenderness that was somehow completely new. I hadn’t expected anything to change, after all we had lived together most of our lives. If I was my Dad I’d quote Willie Nelson: “Ninety percent of the people in the world end up with the wrong person. And that’s what keeps the jukebox spinning.” No songs would be written about our relationship. We didn’t fight enough and we would never be dramatic enough for a power ballad. There was never anyone else.

Phil was sick for the last couple of years, first from the chemotherapy for his liver and then his lungs too. We got good at hospitals. He learned everything about the diseases, and the treatments. When he started to accept that the end might be coming he asked me to learn with him; to search for something that might help him through it. We’d been to Tibet a few years earlier and he’d been inspired by the Buddhist monks that accepted death with joy and peace. I think Phil was very scared, at first, and I was too, so I agreed. We went to classes together with a teacher who we grew very fond of. We learned to meditate and even had a go at tai chi.

Spirituality wasn’t really my thing – I’d always been far too shrewd – and I don’t think it was Phil’s either, but it seemed to help. It gave him a goal and a distraction from it all. The aim was simple: stop feeling like an idiot long enough to achieve enlightenment and inner peace. It’s easy to laugh at the weirdoes meditating under a tree or using energy or prayer to cure a broken leg, but I think Phil thought that if it made them so happy then it was a thing worth believing. Every now and then I’d feel it, what everyone else was feeling, but then I got too self-conscious again and lost it. Phil was better. Maybe it was because his incentive was stronger, but he always strove for the hardest things – like his favourite, “You need to try to master the ability to feel sad without actually being sad.” Even through his own pain Phil was worried about me, and he wanted to make sure that I’d be okay without him. Mostly I tried not to think about it, focussing instead on mastering the water-flowing-21-movement without knocking myself out.

He returned to photography in a big way and began to paint like he hadn’t in years. We made an effort to get back into contact with old friends and family, and even filmed a few things here and there for documentaries – the ‘looking back’ kind. Returning to the studio was always strange. It felt like coming home only to discover that all your family members had been replaced by younger, bouncier bubbles of enthusiasm that looked at you with wide eyes and flushed cheeks.

At the last minute he received a liver transplant, which seemed to work perfectly, and he almost instantly regained his health and energy. Then that, too, began to fail, and there was no way out. But when the doctor said, “That’s it. We have no more options,” the only part Phil heard was ‘options’ – he didn’t give up till the last half hour of his life, when he suddenly accepted it – all at once and completely.

I’d gotten him out of hospital a few days before and we were at home once more. Even though he was extremely weak, he insisted on going out into the bright morning sun. Everything we had studied and practiced had been preparing for this and we attempted to meditate – trying to move the mystical ‘energy’ up from the belly and into the heart and out through the head. I guess when faced with oblivion and a dark and empty void it becomes easier to accept anything and everything and let yourself believe.

We were alone in our garden and my inhibitions faded away, blinded by the sun and the birdsong and the blue sky. I’ve never seen an expression as full of wonder as Phil’s as he died. His hands were hovering halfway off the ground and his eyes were wide open. I was holding in my arms the person I loved most in the world, and talking to him as he died. His heart stopped. He wasn’t afraid. I had gotten to walk with him to the end of the world. Life – so beautiful, painful and dazzling – does not get better than that. And death? Well, to the well-organized mind death is but the next great adventure.

At the moment, I have only happiness and I am so proud of the way he lived and died, of his incredible kindness and capacity for love. I’m sure he will fill my dreams and seem to be alive again, and I will hold him in my arms many times more. I see him in the blue of the sky and I hear him in the birdsong and the patter of the rain on our window. And, divine or not, I am standing here by myself all at once filled with gratitude and hope. How incredible it is that we can change each other and do so much with our words and hearts and actions in our short, short lives.