How many of us have unknowingly passed by the body of DJ Derek since his disappearance last July? I know I have, countless times, on foot, on my bicycle and in my car, in all likelihood a matter of a few feet away from where he lay.
Of course, those of us who passed so close need feel no guilt. There was no reason we should have suspected Derek would be there, otherwise we would have alerted the authorities long ago. But the irrational side of me wishes I had been able to do something.
Derek’s last but one resting place is close to where many thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people have visited since July 2015, the Cribbs Causeway Shopping Mall. Just imagine how many there were in the period around Christmas? And the junction of Highwood Road and Merlin Road is a matter of a few yards from Patchway. It’s not as busy as it was before Highwood Road became a road for buses only, but there must have been thousands of locals who got close to finding this great man and never knew it.
If nothing else, it reminds me that even in this overcrowded city, where we feel as if we are sometimes standing on top of each other, it is possible to get lost, to be alone and in the worst case scenario never found. A matter of a few yards from where Derek probably fell and he’d have been discovered very quickly. How awful for the family that he ended his life where and when he did.
How agonising has this eight months been? It is one thing to lose a much loved family member or friend, but it is quite another to lose him and then not know where he had gone. All that searching, all that desperation, all that fading hope. And then today, the search is over and all that’s left is emptiness.
Emptiness and, hopefully and eventually, some closure. There is no closure without physical evidence. The pain will never go away but at least Derek isn’t suffering. After such sadness, you never start a new life, as I always say. You just struggle on with the one you have.
RIP DJ Derek. It was all about the music for you and we thank you for sharing it with us.
