My friend Edward Gair, who has died of cancer aged 61, worked in the fruit and vegetable trade for almost 40 years, adored Newcastle United and Bob Dylan, and loved cooking for his wife and daughters.
Ed and his identical twin, Terry, were born in Blackhill, County Durham, to Catherine (nee Carter) and Edward Gair, who had met when they were both working as bus conductors. The boys grew up in nearby Rowlands Gill, with their older sister, Jayne. After St Bede’s grammar school in Lanchester, Ed went to what was then Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University) to study French, Spanish and economics, which is where I met him.
In 1984, a time of high unemployment, Ed was the first person from our course to find a job (and one of the few to use his languages in his work), moving to London straight after graduating to work for a company importing fruit from Spain and the Canary Islands. As he continued to work in the same field until 2022, Ed became a fruit and vegetables expert, and would embarrass his family by advising total strangers on their choice of produce while doing the weekly shop.
I moved south a few months after Ed, along with my schoolfriend, Anne Pollitt (known as Polly). We three Geordie exiles spent our weekends together, and after a while, Ed and Polly’s friendship blossomed into romance. They married in 1990 and brought up their daughters, Helen and Katherine, in Purley.
While Dylan was Ed’s top musical passion, his tastes included most genres. Katherine even got him into Taylor Swift. The Gairs were a family who, even with the girls grown and with partners of their own, enjoyed doing things together. All four enjoyed gaming, with Mario Kart a family favourite. Ed taught his daughters to cook when they were students and took immense pleasure in feeding his family. His Mediterranean spread on Eurovision night was the stuff of legend.
He often impressed us, too, with his encyclopedic knowledge – Newcastle United being one of his specialities. He was also a huge cricket fan, watching it on television but preferring the Test Match Special commentary.
After his redundancy at the age of 60, Ed was delighted to find a new job in the accounts department at the insurance company esure.
He is survived by Polly, Helen and Katherine, his sister, Jayne, and his brother, Terry.
