My friend Mike died

 

That's Mike, in the middle

To me and to our friends at Sheffield uni he was simply Mike Smith, but later he reverted/converted to Michael Pearson-Smith.  He was the first friend I made in Sheffield after a tricky few months during which, though I had been desperate to get away from school and home, I was colossally ill equipped for any kind of social life. (I'd picked an all-male Hall of Residence, not having spoken to a girl in 7 years of boarding school, and had little in common with either the other residents there - or with the others on my Biochemistry course.)

We met through Chris Fletcher (also, now, deceased), who I vaguely knew from school and who was on the same course as Mike. I met my other uni friends (Neville Jones, Brian Martin, Kevin O'Leary, Dorothy Waterhouse, Bruce I'Anson, Bruce Wood and others) via this route. 

Mike was into cricket big time (a bowler) as well as Manchester United and West Coast music. He had an impressive vinyl collection and loved to play these to anyone who would listen. In particular he introduced me to Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, Frank Zappa, and above all the Grateful Dead. The latter's "Anthem of the Sun" blew me away. I already liked The Doors and had their albums, but Mike had not been impressed with these. Only when their live album ("Absolutely Live") was released did he come to appreciate them.

It was walking back to Earnshaw Hall, where I was staying, from Mike's place (Tapton Hall) after one night of music that I realised, elated, that I had a friend.

Mike became hugely knowledgeable about all kinds of music from bebop to punk, psychedelic to folk. Back then, though he was not impressed with the nascent heavy metal sound. If we heard the sounds of Black Sabbath ("...Satan's sitting there") blasting from another room we'd respond with equally loud Quintessence ("...Drown me deep in the sea of your love")!

I believe we first met in the Beehive pub on West Street, just down the road from the Student's Union and this became a regular lunch spot, not that I had many lunchtimes (unlike the Arts students I was hanging out with) due to lectures and lab. sessions. I do, though, fondly remember weekly lunches going over the previous night's Monty Python sketches - and laughing just as much the second time round. 

Occasionally there would be a random afternoon when nobody had anything on, and this would result in a "spontaneous piss-up" which would probably mean 4 pints each and a long afternoon of debate about Cromwell and the English civil war or some other nonsense. Bizarrely one edition of Steptoe and Son at the time had Harold moaning about "the Monty Python crowd in the Beehive"! How did the writers know?!

When we graduated Mike went off to Canada and after that we rarely met up but we kept in touch with letters and then emails and the occasional phone call. He lived in Buxton for a while with his family (2 children) and then they emigrated to Australia. 

He followed closely the punk era in the UK and was an avid collector and student of all kinds of obscure bands throughout his life. He campaigned energetically against the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese authorities and, with his wife Pauline, was a Falun Gong practitioner. 

We last met 8 years ago, when C and I did our Australia trip and travelled to Melbourne before flying home. Mike was not well then, and his health deteriorated quite quickly due to alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (caused by a genetic mutation and resulting in lung and liver damage).

I set the alarm for the live-stream of his funeral, which was surely the longest I've been to. Along with others, I'd sent a short video tribute listing some memories, and there was more than one eulogy. It's not the same as losing a family member or someone you see every day, but I shall miss my friend: his recommendations, his musings on the fortunes of Man U. and the England cricket team, someone to share new YouTube finds. 

Below are listed the bands we saw together, mostly in Sheffield 1970-1972:

John Mayall, Curved Air (supporting Black Sabbath but we didn't stay!), Pink Floyd, Patto, Traffic, Pentangle, Quintessence (5 times), David Bowie, Emmerson Lake and Palmer, the Pretty Things, Edgar Broughton Band, Amon Duul II