No one who ever meet Gerry Fitt - no matter for how long - hasn't got a memory of him. He was the kind of man whom you would sense entering a room even if you had your back to him. A bit like his fellow Belfastman, George Best , or even - dare I say it? - Mother Teresa or even the Pope, or, at a push, Bill Clinton.
You get my drift. There are some people you meet who leave such a lasting impression that you can close your eyes when they're gone and still see them. You can hear them - their phrases, their asides. You almost feel as if you can open your eyes and still follow them down a corridor. Gerry Fitt, whom I am honoured to have known for 30 years and equally honoured to have called a friend, was a presence.
In strict political terms, Gerry didn't change much. He never strayed from his original, basically socialist, principles: the problem in Northern Ireland was that the Protestant and Catholic working classes were divided by sectarian politics when they should have been united by their shared disadvantage in a place where jobs and housing and educating your children for those who lived in, say, Belfast's back-to-back, walk-in houses on the Protestant Shankill or the Catholic Falls Road, was an equal misery.
Gerry whistled in the dark about this for a long time, from his early days as an MP for the constituency of Dock in Belfast when he was astonished to win the seat in the old Northern Ireland parliament at Stormont. He once told me that when he heard he had been elected he wondered how he would actually get to the Parliament building way out on the Newtownards Road.
Gerry never drove a car in his life - thank God! And as if that wasn't daft enough, he told me that when he went to put in his nomination papers for the election, he had to borrow the money from Major Ronald Bunting, then a friend, later to become one of Ian Paisley's more furious and eccentric supporters. (By the by, I bet my last dollar that Ian Paisley will pay genuine and generous praise to Gerry).
But it was the other side of Gerry Fitt that I remembered when I heard of his death. It was the swashbuckling Gerry who walked with a swagger, not because he was showing off but because he had learned to balance himself from side to side as a merchant seaman. And when I say he never changed much in politics, I mean it as a tribute: because he was one politician who never wavered in his view that the extreme Republicanism which led to the IRA's murderous campaigns of more than 30 years was utterly unacceptable. And this was a man whose head had been split open by an RUC baton in an early Civil Rights march in October 1968 in Derry. His decent credentials and his pursuit of peaceful politics stand in contrast with those of Mr Gerry Adams, whose comment when Gerry was elevated to the House of Lords tell us all we need to know about the difference between the two: "Fitt's peerage has been gained on the bodies of men, women and children, murdered by the forces of the Crown". By their words ye shall know them.
If Gerry's contribution the permanent politics of Anglo-Irish relations was minor, he played an important part in raising the profile of Northern Ireland politics and politicians, particularly Catholics, at Westminster. Central to this was his enthusiasm - and indeed his daftness. And was he daft daft at times! In 1970 when, against all the odds, Ted Heath's Tories won the British general election things were - as usual - pretty dodgy in Northern Ireland. I cannot remember why it was that I found myself one evening with Gerry, two armed police officers and a driver in Heath's office in Downing Street. Gerry and I were due to stay at the Irish Club in Eaton Square and as the drink flowed and the hours sped past I reminded Gerry that we had a plane to catch next morning and also that the driver allocated to him lived in Colchester in Essex and the driver's wife was expecting a baby at any minute. Gerry decided we could let this young father-to-be get off home and get ourselves back to the club another way.
The following conversation took place. GF: "Ted, can I use the phone? I need a taxi. I have a pal here in London who'll take us."
TH: "Of course Gerry, use the white one."
GF: "Hello, it's Gerry Fitt. Can you pick myself and Henry Kelly up at Downing Street and take us to the Irish Club in Eaton Square? [ Pause] Hold on I'll ask. [ Pause] Ted, that taxi driver wants to know what number in Downing Street. [ Pause] It's number 10, 10 Downing street. When you come in it's near the end on the right-hand side."
We got back to the Irish Club and found the usual swell of members and friends milling around. I mentioned to Gerry we hadn't eaten. He shrugged and said we'd have time enough for that. He ordered his favourite drink: "Gin and tonic and no friggin' debris!" In Gerry's eyes ice and lemon were debris and he remains to this day the only person I've ever met who could drink warm g&t.At about five o'clock the next morning I was woken by Gerry standing over my bed.
"Look, you told me to eat somethin'. I am. The car is coming in about an hour so we've time for a walk around Eaton Square!" Gerry was actually drinking milk from a pint bottle, his third of the morning as it transpired.
The car came and we headed for Heathrow. I suddenly remembered that the previous night in No 10 Gerry had taken out his mouth-organ and played a medley of tunes, much to the delight of the prime minister. Ted Heath was genuinely pleased and though he didn't join in with some of us who slurred Danny Boy and a few other Irish ballads, when Gerry finished Heath suggested to him that he should have had a go at other musical instruments.
As we eventually left Downing Street, Gerry, embracing Heath and waving goodbye to the staff turned and said : "You know, Ted, I'd have given my right arm to have played the violin".