This is how eras really end. It doesn’t happen with fanfares and fireworks, it is the small but important things, such as the death of a window cleaner.
That is, at least, how I believe Graham Cousins was known to His Majesty’s Customs and Revenue. To the many people that have known the 71-year-old Belfast boy there was a much longer list of personas to conjure with: a two times ex-husband; a father; a brother; a wheeler-dealer; a paramilitary; a peacemaker; a music entrepreneur; a music fan; an Irishman; an Ulsterman; a Northamptonian.
He was one of the old rascals from Northampton back in the day – a face from the Tom Hall crowd with a blaze of red hair among a cast of musicians and creatives that also included the writer Alan Moore. He was the kind of character you would find on the sidelines at protests and benefit gigs in the days when counterculture was about extending people’s rights rather than spreading hate. So many people knew him and knew of him.
In East Belfast he became a Loyalist paramilitary not long after the untimely death of his preacher father. He visited England to watch Bob Dylan in the 70s and only returned to Belfast as a visitor. He had a sackful of tall tales, which is how I came to know him – we had been working on a book together for the past few years following an introduction from the aforementioned Mr Moore. We struck up an unusual friendship that was deeper than it was long.
I had interviewed Graham several times on some difficult subjects. His past was nothing if not colourful. Hiding guns. Holding up buses. Manning barricades. Smashing windows. He loved to see Glasgow Rangers win. He loved Van Morrison. Eventually Northampton and its unlikely inland pirate crew of characters and cultural icons somehow knocked some of the political rough edges off him. He never stopped thinking and talking about his family in Belfast, especially his mother whose recent passing was a great blow.
Perhaps the most outstanding example of his ability to forge unexpected connections would have been his friendship with Padraig ‘Packy’ McMahon, an IRA bombmaker who had bonded with Graham over a shared love of music. The book began as their collaboration – a word weighted with real meaning – both of them were accused of betraying their roots by engaging with ‘the enemy’ and lost friends over their willingness to give each other a chance.
They met at an Alabama 3 gig in Belfast, years after the Good Friday agreement. They were both friends of the band but also friends of Gerry Conlon who spent 15 years wrongly imprisoned as one of the ‘Guildford Four’ and then became a campaigner against miscarriages of justice. Gerry introduced them to each other during the interval.
It sounds as strange to me as it may sound to you. For most people any one of these friendships would be unusual but Graham was a surefooted traveller on the path less trod.
He was family friends with the Rev Ian Paisley in Belfast, one of the most notorious community leaders in Northern Ireland throughout the 70s and 80s. The Rev Paisley was, frankly, to an Englishman like me, a frightening fire and brimstone type preacher and to ‘Packy’ he would have been unequivocally the enemy and the juiciest of targets. To a section of the loyalist community in Northern Ireland he was a fearless defender of their way of life. But to Graham and his family in particular he was a warm and generous friend who supported them through the untimely death of Graham’s father.
When snooker legend Alex Higgins came to Northampton to play in the World Doubles Championships Graham ended up in his hotel room finding him glasses of milk to drink. The way Graham told it they bumped into each other walking across the Market Square. Higgins, who was teamed up with Jimmy White, had a reputation for hedonism and certainly in his younger days Graham would have been ready to assist him with that any way he could.
Higgins apparently said the police had warned him not to get mixed up with Graham and almost to prove a point Graham made sure that Higgins had a ready supply of nothing stronger than milk. He ensured Higgins returned to Derngate to beat Cliff Thorburn and Willie Thorne with a clear head. I’ve been checking these things as far as I can and I have yet to discover a falsehood.
The book progressed with Graham and ‘Packy’ presenting me with people to interview from their families, the punk scene and the political scene in Belfast. We were waiting to complete some further sessions with ‘Packy’ when Graham began experiencing seizures that ended up putting him in hospital. He had become a physically weaker man in recent years but his energy as a human being did not dim until well into this hellishly hot summer.
I went into hospital myself for a heart operation and one of the first pieces of news I had when I returned home in August was that Graham had died. It seemed unbelievable to me, as I know it would have to the many people that knew him in Northampton.
Graham was as much a fixture in our lives as some of the pubs and bars that have passed out of existence in this town. He was no saint but his capacity for doing a good thing or the right thing was all the more impressive because of it. He could be loud and angry but also gentle and thoughtful.
In Northampton a lot of his life was spent putting together albums of music by local creators. He was a compact disc man. The digital world baffled him apart from Facebook which he embraced wholeheartedly  and where ‘F*ck the Tories’ practically became his catchphrase. He was ‘that’ kind of class warrior from ‘that’ era. The Tories were the baddies, Labour were a disappointment and only Van the Man and his friend Alan Moore could be relied on. He was immensely proud of his sons Leighton, Leon and Keiron and always spoke to me with huge respect for his family in Belfast – siblings Ina, Robert and Sharon.
There was much discussion among people we met while working on the book of the unequal nature of his friendship with ‘Packy’ who Graham described as a ‘genuine operator’ for the IRA, having served prison time for making bombs. By comparison Graham was much more of a loyalist foot soldier. He left Belfast before he was tasked with taking a life. Apparently such a mission was being planned at the point he crossed the Irish Sea to watch Bob Dylan. When I put it to Graham that he deliberately didn’t go back to avoid being part of a sectarian murder he denied it. In his mind that would have been a cowardly admission but either way it never happened. My feeling is that he was always a better person than he gave himself credit for.
Many of the CDs of local musicians he produced are still available to buy via his son Leighton on Facebook.
Graham’s funeral is at Milton Malsor Crematorium on October 19, at 2.30pm. There is a wake afterwards at Kingsley Working Men’s Club. Donations to Northampton Hope Centre.
