Letters to a dying friend now published in fond remembrance

Brendan’s son Antony Hegarty (now renamed Anohni) is a celebrated singer and musician. Antony was born and raised in Chichester in the 1970s and 1980s. The family then moved to America where Antony established himself as a performing artist, winning the 2005 Mercury Music Prize.

Antony’s father Brendan was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour, and Paul, aged 70, wrote a short story for him each week. Brendan passed away before the list of 20 stories could be finished.

The stories are now published in the new book entitled Making A Friend Smile.

The book has been released by Olympia Publishers, London at £12.99, available from olympiapublishers.com, amazon.co.uk, waterstones.com and bookdepository.com.

Brendan was a prominent businessman. He convinced his Silicone Valley, California hi-tech firm to build a large manufacturing site in Londonderry, Northern Ireland with the help of John Hume, recipient of the Nobel prize.

Paul recalls “My friend Brendan was dying of an aggressive, inoperable brain tumour.

“In the mid-1970s, against advice and more obvious candidates, he gave me a gift: a wonderful job opportunity which had the greatest positive impact on my working life and consequently that of my family. He gave me a sliding doors moment.

“In 1979, we lost contact until the summer of 2000. Our families had been friends during the 70s and we easily renewed our friendship. When we learned of his illness, my wife Angie and I went to visit him and Carla, his wife, in November 2013 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He had a few months to live.

“Brendan suggested we went for a walk in the woods, just the two of us. I realised he wanted to just walk and see where the talk would take us. I had prepared what I had wanted to say to him a long time beforehand. I told him I wanted to give him a gift.

“The two things he had really liked latterly in life were wine and golf. But these weren’t possible in his current circumstances. I wanted to write Brendan a letter, once a week, which would be a story of a circumstance in which I found myself. I wanted to try and make him smile in the grimmest of personal situations. He liked the idea and he chose the first letter from a list of 20 story headlines I showed him. He then chose the order in which I would write the rest without him knowing what the story was actually about.

“This book is my gift to him. He died before I could finish the list, but I continued to write to him. I felt the gift had to be finished. The last time we spoke, he suggested I publish the stories. This book contains the letters I wrote to him before and after he passed.

“In the 1970s and early 1980s Brendan Hegarty lived in Chichester. Brendan’s most famous son, Antony Hegarty, was born in October 1971 in Chichester and is now styled as Anohni. He is a singer, composer, and visual artist. Anohni was formerly the lead singer of the band Antony and the Johnsons. They won the 2005 Mercury Prize. Anohni now lives in New York and has a following of 250,000 on social media.

“Brendan was born in London, the son of Irish immigrants. Education took Brendan away from poverty. He earned a PhD in physics and later he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Ulster. Brendan progressed rapidly after joining a global computer company, distinguishing himself in positions both in the UK and the Netherlands. In 1981, he was then assigned to a senior position in San Jose, California where he became a prominent member of the Irish community.”

Paul added: “This is a book of 20 short stories. All of these stories, put in letters, are true. Most names have been changed or omitted to protect the innocent, guilty and injured bystanders. There is no intent to cause offence or misrepresent. This book was only written to bring a smile. These are individual stories which are not in any sequence or required to be read in the order Brendan chose them. A reader should pick them in the order they would like.

The stories are spread over five continents, Europe, Africa, South America, North America and Asia. If I haven’t made you smile, I should have at least given you a situation where you can think how you might have reacted. You’ll probably smile then.”