Just a few weeks ago we found out that my uncle, Colin was missing. In itself this didn’t seem unusual. We often had no idea where he was – our only clue a postcard in an indecipherable scribble from a distant corner of the earth. Sometimes we knew he’d gone there, sometimes we received the postcard weeks after he returned and promptly vanished again. He was an extraordinarily well travelled man, led by his sense of adventure everywhere from Alaska to Timbuctoo, from China to Egypt. Colin was in half of the Arab Springs countries weeks before the revolutions (so close that we wondered if he might in fact be a spy…), evaded natural disasters and the horrors of airport terminals around the world. And finally, to Scotland. It seems absurd that his exploring should end so close to home.

We, Marilyn and I, first noted Colin’s absence the previous Friday. We would always see him on the last Friday of the month, eating something vast and reading a book at The Glee Club in Nottingham. One of our friends tried to contact him because he’d pre-booked his ticket but hadn’t collected it. I vaguely remembered that he was off walking; I figured I’d text him later. My phone died, I didn’t get round to it; life gets in the way. Almost a week later, on Thursday he didn’t arrive for work at Rolls Royce, the police were contacted and the search began.

Those four days after Colin being declared missing are unique in my experience. We don’t always know where everyone is (discounting the NSA of course), and Colin is the person I’d worry least about. But Colin went missing up in the Scottish Highlands and it became serious and frightening. Mum and Mike spent several days with the Inverness police who, with the Lochaber and Kintail Mountain Rescue teams, the Search And Rescue Dogs Association and helicopters from RAF Lossiemouth scoured the huge and beautiful wilderness. On Sunday they found him, but he wouldn’t be coming home. It seems he fell from a ridge and likely died on impact. That was at least five days earlier, so Colin had been dead since before we thought him missing.

I only had one uncle, and he was an enigmatic, funny, interesting guy. I find it hard to say at what point he became a major feature in my life. When I was much younger, probably as far back as I can remember, Colin was a quiet smiling dark presence and a moustache. Ah the moustache! He was probably the first person I’d seen or knew who had a moustache. I recall being fascinated and slightly scared of it. I don’t think he really knew what to do with us when we were very little (my brother, sister and I), other than be there at family occasions, smile and be slightly gruff. I find myself the same with my nieces. I remember him being in the lead when we walked around Kirby Lonsdale on family holidays and being startled by his explosive laugh.

It wasn’t until I was older that I began to know Col, and find out what we had in common (besides fine eyebrows, and later a moustache). Books: science fiction and fantasy gave us something to talk about – he introduced me to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and began a much-loved tradition of exchanging fantastic fiction for birthdays and Christmas (I suppose I’ll be keeping the ones I got him for Christmas this year).

It’s strange but wonderful to know someone since childhood but to only become friends in adulthood. For Colin and I that only really happened once I’d left university, after Nanna had passed away, leaving Colin and my Mum alone. So the family drew closer, bringing in to it new people, like Liz’s other half – Steve, my partner Marilyn and later Tim’s wife Susie and Mum’s husband Mike. The dynamic shifted somehow and especially for Marilyn and I, with Colin we found a certain kinship in humour and attitude. That is to say: somewhat cynical, often sarcastic (and often frowned upon) – we made each other laugh. The three of us seemed to naturally slide into the pen for the darker sheep of the family (I was happy to whisk the mantle from my brother, once he turned all respectable). For reasons that remain unclear to any of us, people felt they should just leave their kids with us at weddings and parties. It might have been because we all gravitated towards the toys and colouring pencils, but a trio less likely to take good care  of your children would be hard to find… we’d wander off in search of the bar.

Colin became a regular facet of my life when we started doing monthly improv comedy shows in Nottingham. To both of our surprises he was there almost every month. It is immensely satisfying to make your family laugh, and his distinctive laugh made me laugh too whenever I heard it. After the show we used to spend hours breaking down the set and Colin was always there helping and chatting. More recently we’ve gone straight to the bar for hours of conversation and silliness. I hadn’t realised for just how long and how deeply embedded Colin had become in that monthly event – not only for me and Marilyn, but for the rest of MissImp.

It’s also been very personally rewarding to have that support.

At times I worried that he was lonely – he was a single man living on his own in a, what’s a generous way to put this… untidy house. It sounded like a lonely life. Except it wasn’t: Colin was never defined so narrowly, we should judge Colin by his actions and the people he affected. And he did a lot. I didn’t know he used to drive an XR2i (dangerously), play bridge, hold patents, wear fancy dress at the gym, support several charities, accidentally slay kangaroos or be known as Flight Lieutenant Barnfather. It wasn’t just us who looked forward to seeing him, there was everybody else he saw at work, with the air cadets and in his insane fitness regime. We never see all of a person, just those parts of them that lie in our shared experiences.

In these past few weeks we have heard from so many people who loved Col just as much as we did and saw him even more often. I’m delighted (which is entirely the wrong word, but I don’t know what to use instead) to find that he affected so many people, made so many people happy with his cheerful, generous personality, that he was loved so widely for being exactly the person I loved.

We will all miss Colin. I will miss Colin. I want to thank you, Colin, for being yourself – it’s what I liked about you. That has always been inspirational to me – you can fit in without giving up anything you hold dear; it’s something worth knowing.