John-Luke’s favourite things to watch usually had amazing music - he got so into film composers like Max Richter after watching TV shows that they’d scored, and in particular he loved the War and Peace soundtrack which he listened to often. We also watched a lot of comedy, and one of his recent faves was Derry Girls. (it also has a brilliant 90s soundtrack which was like reliving our youth). One of his favourite lines was “why don’t you do a half load?” “You know that goes against everything I stand for”. For some reason this really made him giggle! Don’t get me wrong, we’ve watched unbelievable amounts of rubbish as well. Back in the day we loved Big Brother. He was also a lifelong Neighbours fan, and we visited Ramsay Street in 2017 on our Australia trip, where we were lucky enough to run into Karl Kennedy! We’d watch any quiz show, and when we first started living together we used to score ourselves watching University Challenge (although I swiftly put a stop to that when I was roundly beaten every week). He was brilliant at Pointless; I used to tell him that he should go on with my mum as between them they’d have the perfect spread of knowledge to win it. On weekends we’d watch Wheel of Fortune repeats while eating breakfast, and I could sometimes impress him by guessing the answer before they’d even revealed any letters. He loved Bargain Hunt, and if he was off work he’d live WhatsApp me a blow by blow account of what was happening! When we started working at home together we’d always watch it while we had our lunch (less so once we got Kiki and had to go on a walk instead).

The animation of Japanese Studio Ghibli has also been a big part of both of our lives. It’s something we’ve shared with our nieces and nephews over the years, instilling in them a love of Totoro and Ponyo at a young age. When we visited Japan in 2012, we made a special visit to the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo. It was one of the most magical days we’ve ever had, and I remember so clearly how excited John-Luke was to be there. We went round everything and then when we’d finished we did it all again. He really didn’t want to leave. It’s one of the places I will remember him at his happiest.

The first time I met John-Luke he noticed my My Neighbour Totoro wallpaper on my laptop. This led to a long discussion about his forthcoming trip to Japan and the Studio Ghibli museum - a place I’ve wanted to visit for a long time (I think the actual finance discussion was probably squashed into the last five minutes of the meeting!) About a week after he got back from his trip, a Totoro figure arrived in the internal mail for me. It was a wonderful surprise - I couldn’t believe he’d remembered our chat! The figure still sits on my desk and I feel very lucky to have such a lovely reminder of him and his wonderful nature

JL was always recommending TV shows to me.