The dead aren't interested and can't sue. Thus anyone can say what they like, pass on any gossip safe in the knowledge there's no comeback.

I knew Tony Capstick better than Alex or some of the others mentioned (we got memorably pissed on my eighteenth birthday at the Turks Head in Lincoln). Looking back on it now I'm not proud of it, nor the fact that later, when I maybe knew more, I didn't say owt and even bought him a drink. Dredging through my album collection I've listened to some of his (and Alex's) and I think "What a waste" but I, like many others, helped him along the way.

"Tall Poppy Syndrome" is all well and good when your victim can fight back, when they're safely in the ground it smacks of cowardice if you didn't have the nerve to tell it them when they were alive. I didn't and will not speak ill of Tony who was (for me at least) always a lovely man.

Steve