Michael Kelland Hutchence January 22 1960 - November 22 1997

Where to start?

This time nine years ago, I was working my very first job after finishing school around six months previously. It was a terribly trendy PR firm and I happily pretended to be a character in Absolutely Fabulous while sending new fangled emails to friends and drinking champagne from 10am. That particular morning, I remember having a vague sense of 'something has happened' but for whatever reason had been in a world of my own that morning and hadn't paid much attention to the newspapers that people were reading on the tube. I arrived at work and busied myself with the first order of the day, making a cup of tea, joining the group of PR execs in the kitchen area who were all busy outdoing one another with barbed quips about this scandalous death dominating the headlines. One of the male event organisers caused much hilarity by confidently asserting that this was indeed a well known way to enhance orgasm - prompting everyone else to ask precisely how he knew. I didn't pay masses of attention, until I was headed back to my desk with the cup of tea, when I idly asked someone who they were talking about.

"Michael Hutchence. You know, who's going out with Paula Yates? Singer in that band, err…"

"INXS." I muttered, an indescribable chill sweeping over me.

"Yeah that's it. He's only gone and hung himself. Died yesterday."

I walked slowly back to my desk, telling myself that there was nothing to be upset about. I had thought the hoards crying over Princess Di's death a couple of months before a bit ridiculous - here was a man I had never met, nor was ever likely to, what did his death matter to me? It had nothing to do with me, it wasn't my place to grieve. But seconds later I was sitting at my desk wracked with heaving sobs, feeling acutely the absence of a man so vibrant, so alive, so creative that the world was a palpably duller place without him.

They say that the brightest stars burn out first, and that is the only explanation necessary. In the weeks and months that followed, as tabloid media picked over the gory details and speculated over what caused his death, I could only rage that it didn't matter. A father, son, brother, friend and idol is gone.