Steven was a couple of years above me at Oakbank School and although it was probably 15 or so years the last time I saw him, there are lots of memories, particularly working on various school concerts and shows where I can still hear him playing the hilarious part of an Italian mafiosi in "The Oakey Coakey Club". He was a brilliantly funny chap,
and I'm proud to say that I was at the Double Six bar in Keighley when his band, Master Zangpan and the Mechanical Housewife played their legendary set.I feel incredibly sad that he's gone, though I'm glad to read other peoples memories on this site as they have reminded me of him, and am also pleased to hear that he never tamed his subversive and controversial nature.Cheers to you Steven and thanks. Ben Holmes

Couldn't post on the blog so thought I'd bob it down on here. The reason I came across this page was because I was gonna look steven up having not seen him since school days. Although I haven't seen steven for what must be the best part of 15 years I'm really sad to hear of his death. I remember going to watch steven G and Stephen T at the double six. I still find 'kevin is very dull' bouncing around my head to this day! He was a really lovely fella. He had a fantastic sense of humour and he and Stephen Theaker were that bit different to everyone else I used to love hanging out on rare occasions down in the music dept. I remember Steven and Stephen taking me to one side in the art cooridor to ask me to sing on a track they'd written. Never did sing it though, still was made up to have been asked. Anyway goodluck to you steven you'll be missed mate.
Phil Batch

I've dug out a few more old photos. There are three of the eclipse on Brighton Beach August 1999, one from the millennium NYE and one of my favorite photos (taken from my fire escape) of a funny night in 2000 where we all got very drunk on Vodka and trashed my flat.

A lot of laughing happened in those two years and Steven became a close friend to me and to Ed as well. There was obviously more to Steven than a brilliant sense of humour but, as cheesy as it sounds, it's the fun times that I will always remember.

Tim

Steven's funeral is next Thursday, 28th June, at 12.00 noon at Perry Barr Crematorium in Birmingham.

I remember at University when John first said his friend Steven was going to come and stay with him and Anneliese. Rachel, Anne-Fay and I were really excited about meeting him. He was a very welcome addition to our student family and we knew he'd be someone special because he was John's friend.

Brighton has the happiest memories for me, partly because of nostalgia and being students but also because we were all so close: smoking cigars at various pubs; odd things we bought from the car boot in Hollingbury; parties and Rachel's dad's wine. At the Mufti's it was Steven who found the key to the garage, where we were sure we'd find some kind of torture devices. Actually it was just lots of useful stuff and we were really surprised! At the Princes he and John tormented the night porter one night by phoning each of the four phones in the reception area, in turn, in the middle of the night.

I remember Steven's various jobs: cleaning the pier, the hotel, but especially the day he worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken. He put the uniform on for us to see, beige slacks and a polyester flat cap. I don't think he ever gave it back it was such a good look for him. The stories he told us about the newsletter at Amex, especially the 'amazing facts', like Cliff Richard's Mistletoe and Wine - an ironic hit as Cliff is allergic to both mistletoe and wine.

He came to see us in Bolton with Stephen and Ranj. We had too much to drink, seemed to sit in every seat in Frankie and Benny's and then went to watch Blade 2. Steven and I stole a huge roll of loo paper coz I suddenly remembered we hadn't got any at home and it was too late to buy any. Steven hid it under his coat as we left. We went together to see The Revenger's Tragedy at the Birmingham Film Festival clasping popcorn, nachos and coke to find the auditorium filled with very serious people who looked disapprovingly at us. The film was terrible. There was a q&a at the end with the Director and we just couldn't take any more
so filed out shamefaced exept Steven who said, 'What a load of toss' very loudly. John and I were astonished by the similarity of the main character in the film Brick to Steven and were planning to take Steven along to see it with us all and just point at him.

We moved to Birmingham in 2005 to be near Stephen, Ranj, Lori and Steven. We met up for coffee and saw him in Waterstones putting paper human skeletons together. I read all his reviews of books - masterpieces of sardonic wit. He came for tea, we talked about Oblivion (the game) watched Japanese films and hung out - we even went bowling. Last summer we sat in the garden having a barbeque and playing swingball with Lori. Steven did a heroic job of blowing up a gym ball for an extra seat in the garden. He was a brilliant uncle to Lori. She got the best presents from him, including a set of soft toy viruses like athlete's foot and plague. We also got to see the look on his face when, as a mark of favour and affection, Lori took her potty right next to him and did a pooh.

The last time I saw him we were watching snooker and eating veggie sausages and fishfingers with mash and gravy. He said his mum used to give him money on a Friday night to buy his tea. Whatever he wanted. He always got a mars bar, a coke, a packet of crisps and a bun. They had them waiting for him at Southams.

I'm so glad he met our son and so sorry that he won't see him growing up. Steven was our friend, we loved him and his death leaves a huge hole.

Sam

I only lived with Steven for 6 months and worked with him for a little over a year and a half, but during that time he made a lasting mark. He did things, as everyone will know, that made you look - often agog at his outlandish comments or actions. On one occassion he wore a t-shirt with the word "Satan' in a christian fish purely to annoy the catholic woman in his team at work.Another time when I went to bed the night before a meeting at work he played Sonic Youth at full volume. When I asked him to turn it down he spent the next five minutes of my dozy night by trying to tell me how amazing the guitar solo of some 20 odd minutes was. Finally he capitulated and said he'd play something quieter. I went back upstairs, no sooner had I crept back into my bed than he started to play "Mars, Bringer Of War" even louder. I went back
downstairs to see him laughing his unique laugh.I finally got Sonic Youth. Thanks Steven.

Posted by Mute Witness.

When I found this blog, I tried really hard to remember some kind of funny story about Steven that would jibe with everyone's witty and light-hearted remembrances. But I am disappointed to say I can't remember a single one of Steven's jokes, although they were many and cruel (I laughed out loud at his hilarious reaction, as recounted by Nicola below, to a meeting about sanctions on Iraq). What I can say is that when I heard the news, I remembered that sunny terrace house in Hanover, 12 years and some 3,000 miles away, and I heard a St. Etienne song to which I had listened to endlessly during the short year I lived there (on further reflection, Steven would be pleased to know, my inner soundtrack switched to the more appropriate Joy Division-to whom he had introduced me via a rare Warsaw LP of which he was quite proud).

Perhaps my lack of jokes would have fitted Steven's then assessment of me; I took myself too seriously. As we became friends over the course of the year-at pub quiz in the London Unity, moving the various illicit pets between locations, some notable birthday celebrations (his, mine and others), endless rounds of Bomberman -- his easy-going character and unconditional friendship (extended to me both by Steven and his/our wider Hanover crew including Nicola, John and Sam, Anne-Fay, Dorian) encouraged a somewhat defensive 19 year-old to let down my guard and embrace my inner geek. While his humour could be harsh-as everyone notes, he wasn't afraid to mock the afflicted-he was, dare I say it, quite sensitive and could be very loyal as a friend.

Steven himself was uncompromising in his refusal to take anything in life too seriously. That provided for all those jokes about contemporary taboos and it also apparent in his cartoons and writing. The consummate cynic, he will remain with me to poke fun at my more sanctimonious outbursts. On hearing the news I actually googled Steven, hoping to find a piece of his writing on the web. I noticed the title of a piece he wrote for the original 'New Words,' "Something Is Always Missing". It might be ten years since we were in regular contact but that title sums it up Steven. - NF.

Everthing connects

I posted a Bukowski poem on my blog yesterday for Steven and just got this comment:

"Hello. The beginning of this post was a sad way to begin the day.
I'm sorry for your loss. But the Bukowski poem is electrifying. I read a couple of the great man's books a while ago and now I want to rediscover his work. Thanks to you, and your friend, I read something amazing before 9am on a Friday morning."

Steven with a pint

Joe, Steven and Alex

It’s going to be hard to write something for Steven that people won’t find offensive. Most of the time I was with him was spent mocking the (slightly) less fortunate. It was a lot of fun…

This was edited slightly so it doesn't really make much sense so thought i should add that Steven asked me to make a top for him with something very offensive written on it. He wore it under his work clothes so if anything happened to him and he went to hospital the nurses would see it when they took his shirt off. He bought a t-shirt from H&M that looked like “a mental hospital top” which went well with what was written.

He taught me to dance. Properly.

We got drunk on the beach and I drank so much I couldn’t focus so he told me he would help me home led me into town and left me by the clock tower.

The horribly brilliant laugh that he did every time something unfortunate happened to anybody.

He was always trying to get me to start smoking and anyone that gave up was a quitter. It seems the smoking ban was too much for him.

Goodbye Steven, you quitter, and if there is some sort of retribution for all the cancer, aids, child murder victim jokes we have made and you come back with spasmosis try and let me know so that I can start making amends.

ed

When we were at Oakbank School aged about 14 or 15, it was decided to hold a mock general election to coincide with the real General Election taking place that year. We immediately decided that I should stand as a candidate for the Communist party. Steven was my election agent. We were weak on Marxist doctrine, but good at designing election posters, which were immediately ripped down by our enemies at school (there were many). I think we were drawn to it mainly by the cool enamel badges of Lenin's profile that Steven had brought back from a holiday in Bulgaria.

We also started attending something called "Writers Club", along with Stephen Theaker and another friend of ours. It was basically a lunchtime club for geeks. We sat around and talked about books, and role-playing games. Eventually we published a little magazine of science-fiction stories called "Paranoid". Even at the bargain price of 5p, it was poorly received by our peers, who tore up the magazines and flung them all over the hall.

It was Steven who introduced me to role-playing games: Warhammer, Paranoia and especially Call of Cthulhu. Neither of us had read any Lovecraft stories, but I remember poring over the rulebook with him.

I went to my first proper gig with him: the Wedding Present at the Bradford Festival. I think it was the first time either of us had danced in public. Fortunately it was dark by the time the band came on.

I remember many teenage evenings spent sat in his draughty attic bedroom listening to his Big Black and Silverfish tapes, burning joss sticks. We formed a band called the Theakers that lasted a single afternoon, and recorded a demo tape of Black Flag covers, now lost.

We worked together at the Princes Hotel, the worst hotel in Brighton, so bad that it had been blacklisted by the Brighton tourist board, as general skivvies. We spent our Sunday mornings sat in unoccupied rooms, usually hungover, drinking tea and watching the religious programmes on TV when we were supposed to be cleaning rooms. Or else making long and elaborate breakfasts in the hotel kitchen after the guests had finished eating, which we managed to drag out over most of the morning.

He helped persuade me to keep writing, when I was on the point of giving up. I wish I could have done the same for him.

I first met Steven (12 years ago?) at the house that Nicola, Nick, Sam and John shared in Hanover. He arrived with Anne Fay and they immediately demonstrated their new trick where Steven would lie on the floor and Anne Fay would stand on his stomach. I thought he was weird.

I saw Steven most when he lived in Roundhill Crescent. I remember drinking, talking, laughing, reading comics, watching Reeves and Mortimer and playing a lot of PlayStation.

Digging through my box of old photographs I remembered a lot of things:

• Being invited round for a ‘meat only’ meal. A reaction against the tyranny of vegetarianism, the meal was to consist only of meat and gravy. (We copped out in the end and had some potatoes, and the meat drink was abandoned in the planning stages)



• Watching the Betty Boo video collection. (Many times)



• Being forced to listen to the whole of his new Galaxy 500 box-set. (All 68 songs sounded exactly the same)



• Staying up talking at a party after everyone else had gone to bed. And drinking a bottle of sherry mixed with lemonade because all the other drink had run out.
  
  


• “ALL PILE ON!”
  
  


• Sharing an appreciation of Jimmy Corrigan, despite it being the most depressing comic ever written.

Mostly I remember some very happy times with a very funny guy.

I was right about him being weird though. So long Steven.

The main thing I remember about Steven is laughing with him. This seems to be a common theme in the messages written here and Steven was certainly one of the funniest people I've met.

I knew him from his time in Brighton, first meeting him, I think, at a pub quiz at the London Unity and look back with fond memories of crying with laughter at his jokes, which were often offensive but always funny.

There seemed to be no situation, disability or ailment he couldn't find humour in.

Another memory is a strange period of Steven's life when he rented the smallest flat I think I've ever seen, just off Brighton seafront. He seemed to like it but it was literally a wardrobe with a bed and toilet somehow crammed in.

I gradually lost touch with him around the time he left Brighton. I often thought about getting back in touch but never got round to it. There never seemed any rush until now, when its too late.

His death, which is such a tough word to write, has come as a real shock and makes me wish I had a time machine, something I'd like to think he'd have approved of, if only for the bizarre opportunity of telling the time travelling version of me a dirty joke.

I'll miss him. - JL

I haven’t seen Steven for about 5 years but I regularly remember things about him that make me smile.

He did the funniest Frank Butcher impression I’ve ever seen.

He used to buy a can of diet coke from the same newsagent every morning and grin each time the Indian woman behind the counter called out the price, “45”, because she sounded just like the guy on the Cornershop record, Brim Full of Asha.

His reason for eating fatty food - the cholesterol would keep his heart nice and warm.

That funny stupid/surprised look he did with his glasses hanging halfway off his face.

The way he found humour in all things hateful, generally laughing at and taking the piss out of the disabled, the mentally ill, victims of abuse, cancer patients, kids with leukaemia, AIDS victims, dogs with cancer on Animal Hospital, child murder victims and people afflicted with spasmosis.

If he could come back for 5 minutes he would probably use the time to send an email to all of his friends to see who could come up with the best joke about his death.

Goodbye Steven, you’ll be sadly missed.

Tim

I first met Steven when I was either four or five years old, in Miss Shoesmith's class at Lees Primary School. He had a bit of a mullet, and there was some controversy over whether he was a boy or a girl. By the time we were in the top class, aged 9, we were best friends. We spent a lot of time collaborating on vast drawings populated by thousands of stickmen. Together with a third boy called Tony, we tried to convince ourselves that there were werewolves locked in a basement room underneath the playground, or that we had spotted vampires twitching the net curtains in the upstairs bedroom of a semi just beyond the schoolyard wall.

When we moved up to middle school the next year, the house system separated us into different classes. I remember the first day very vividly. I was terrified by the older children marching around the playground. As the bell went to call us all into school, Steven said, "Meet you here at playtime." Knowing that at every break and lunchtime we would meet up helped me through those first, unpleasant days.

By the time we were twelve Steven had introduced me to heavy metal, through a mix tape borrowed from one of his dad's mates at work. We listened to Metallica, Accept, Motorhead, and especially Iron Maiden. Steven had a huge poster on his bedroom wall of the "Number of the Beast" cover. I wasn't allowed those kind of posters. Neither would my mum agree to sew heavy metal patches onto the back of my denim jacket, as Steven's mum had. After a long negotiation I was allowed a single Marillion patch, but by that time Steven had torn the sleeves off his. We used to go down to a certain record shop near Keighley train station to browse the records in the heavy metal section, and admire the lurid and grisly covers.

It was around this time that we began an odd ritual of setting fire to Star Wars figures using a contraband cigarette lighter. Steven's bedroom was very small, and each ritual sacrifice ended with us opening the windows and spraying deodorant around as though we were underage smokers (we weren't, yet).

We programmed a computer game for the ZX Spectrum called "Murder in Megacity One". You played a psychopath who had to murder as many citizens as possible before you were caught by Judge Dredd. It was rubbish.


A few years later we progressed from metal to goth. Again it was Steven who introduced me to the Sisters of Mercy, the Cult, All About Eve, the Mission. We began to make trips to Leeds to visit what must have been the last surviving goth shop in the city, to buy Patchouli oil and to wish we could afford leather jackets and trousers (Steven did finally get the trousers, years later).

John.

I only knew Steven a little bit before I moved in with him, Sam, Anne Fay, John and Rachel in the big old children’s home we rented in Hollingbury.

He and John took me to the dodgy Hobgoblin pub and the even dodgier Wagon and Horses on my first night out in Brighton. He laughed along with John after I put my hand in a load of gob when I placed my pint on a shelf – it was too high up to see what was on the surface. We all laughed together when each of us carried on getting gob-hands by mistake through the night.

I used to love it when our landlord and landlady came round to mow the lawn (and presumably check we hadn’t burnt down the house). He would run around shouting: “The Muftis are coming! The Muftis are coming!” as though aliens were about to invade.

Steven came along to a couple of commie meetings with me – one of them was a really serious one about the effect of sanctions in Iraq. Afterwards he told me he’d wanted to make a contribution to the discussion but hadn’t. I asked him what he would have said and he replied: “I wanted to congratulate that bloke for managing to go out to Iraq and not come back wearing one of those annoying shawl things.” I loved that too.

I would go round to his flat on Roundhill Crescent and help him play computer games. We were a great team.

The last few times I saw him he was up in Brum. He was so jealous of me going to live in Japan. I wish I had forced him to save up and come and visit.

I will remember Steven as being one of the funniest friends I have ever had. - NC

What I remember:

Steven asking me to get engaged to him 'cos it'll be a laugh' and then realising he was serious.

Steven telling me when we together re. Kylie Minogue 'I wouldn't crawl over her to get to you'.

Steven supporting me through my MA and my mother's illnesses.

Steven saying 'this is what i think of this' in the middle of watching I, Claudius and then farting.

Mr Brown, Mr White, the lesbian mice, the gerbils, the hamsters, the baby mice ... the baby mice apocalypse ...

JohnK spanking Steven on stage at Dynamite Boogaloo in front of my brother and sister-in-law.

Living with Steven, fighting with Steven, laughing with Steven, loving Steven.

Being woken up at 5am by the windows below our bedsit exploding. Steven grabbed his fags. before anything else.

Broad Street, Elm Grove, Roundhill Crescent, Hollingbury.

Steven inflicting the name 'Jepthah' on one of our cats (pictured).

Steven and Annalise having an enormous argument about Marks & Spencers' jeans - Steven was a Levi's 501s man through and through.

Steven's writings, paintings and drawings.

Steven introducing me to Charles Bukowski, Iceberg Slim, Eduardo Paolozzi, The Dead Kennedys and Black Flag.

Steven and I drinking illicitly-acquired fine wine on Brighton beach.

Arguments about The Wedding Present. And Michael Moorcock. - AFT

I can’t quite remember when I first met Steven Gilligan. It might have been at the school library, where I soon joined him, John Greenwood and Sam Dixon as a student librarian. It might have been after someone suggested I look in on a writers’ group (made up mainly of the same people) that was meeting at lunchtimes. Or I might just have met him in the hall at lunchtime one day. However it happened, it was a lunchtime, and he made an immediate impact on me, and we quickly became involved in a dozen silly projects together – we performed sketches at the school shows, started a band (Master Zangpan and the Mechanical Housewife), tried to start a marbles revival, sold trumped-up horoscopes, offered a ghost hunting service, created New Words, launched Silver Age Books, published our novels, and most recently we created November Spawned and Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, to both of which he made notable contributions.

In amongst all that, we laughed a lot, talked a lot about computer games, tv and music, and drank a bit from time to time. He introduced me to Hellblazer, HP Lovecraft, Warhammer, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division, Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out, and a million other things I love so much for which I’m forgetting to give him credit, and took me to my first ever gigs (The Wedding Present and The Wonder Stuff).

He gave me confidence in whatever I wanted to do, gave me a kick up the butt when I needed it, taught me how the importance of the punk rock spirit in everyday life, and did a brilliant job as the best man at my chaotic wedding.

Anyway, he’s gone now – he died at the end of May in 2007. For the rest of my life it’ll feel like something’s missing. My daughter’s lost someone who would have been the best “bad influence” uncle a kid could ask for, and I’ve lost a best friend. He was also the best gift-giver I've ever known – birthdays and Christmases are going to really suck now.

We have some of his Helen and Her Magic Cat strips in hand, so his presence will be felt directly in the magazine for a little while yet, and indirectly for as long as it lasts. If we can, we’ll also put together a new collection of his work at some point.

I think he would have appreciated the way I found out that he was a goner.

Sitting in the lobby of his tower block, waiting for news from the police who had gone to open and investigate his room, I heard someone, a cleaner I think, yelling, “Have you heard? Someone on the first floor has kicked the bucket!”

I couldn't help laughing, because that’s exactly how Steven would have wanted it. – SWT.

This blog is for our friend Steven