THE RETREAT

My fortieth birthday in January 1989 was one I wanted to forget, as it reminded me I was getting on a bit. But Freddie took me to the Meridian in Chelsea to celebrate. He said, ‘I’m taking you out tonight, as forty is the big birthday. ’

Mary came with us in the car and by the time we got there everyone was waiting – Joe, Phoebe, Peter Straker, Dave Clark, Graham Hamilton and his partner Gordon, yet another driver, and John Christie, a singer. Our table stretched along the full length of the restaurant window. And, by happy chance, Eartha Kitt was sitting at the next table with some rather gorgeous young hunks.

‘What would you like to drink? ’ Freddie asked. ‘Go on. You can have anything tonight. ’ He suggested champagne, but I stayed on still wine until the end of supper, when I slipped back bloated in my chair and sipped a brandy. Then Freddie fixed his eyes on me and all the lights in the restaurant dimmed. Waiters wheeled out a birthday cake which was typical of Freddie’s wild imagination: a three-dimensional iced model of the Garden Lodge conservatory. I looked around at Freddie and the others in astonishment, then blurted out: ‘You bastards! ’

I glanced at Freddie’s impish look of delight, then I kissed him.

Phoebe’s birthday was four days after mine and we celebrated at the Bombay Brasserie, a very plush Indian restaurant in west London. Phoebe’s cake really knocked him sideways. It depicted a dramatic scene from Othello.

The same month Freddie released his duet ‘How Can I Go On? ’ from the Barcelona album with Montserrat Caballé.

On Valentine’s Day that year I bought Freddie two dozen roses in an unusual black colour. I arranged them in a vase and placed them in the hallway to greet Freddie when he came downstairs. He came out to me in the garden, kissed me and thanked me for them. A little later, his roses for me arrived.

The following Sunday I was working in the garden when Freddie emerged from the house looking a ridiculous sight. He was wearing the out-sized white overalls and massive wellingtons he’d bought me as a joke at Christmas.

‘Now then, what are you doing? ’ he asked me.

I burst out laughing. He wanted to give a hand and tried helping me with a bit of weeding, but he didn’t know what he was looking for. In the end he just got under my feet so I marched indoors to encourage him to interfere in whatever Joe or Phoebe were doing instead.

Not long afterwards I went to visit my family in Ireland. A neighbour of my mum’s, who lived in a bungalow opposite, had put her home on the market for £ 32, 500 Irish punts (about £ 25, 000 sterling). She asked me if I’d take back with me the estate agent’s particulars of the property to pin up in Irish pubs and clubs in London.

Coincidentally, back home at Garden Lodge Freddie received a letter from a woman who ran a cat sanctuary. He had made a few large donations to her and she’d moved the operation to new premises, also a bungalow. He held up a photograph she’d sent of the property and studied it assiduously. I ran to fetch a picture of the bungalow in Ireland belonging to mum’s neighbour.

‘You think that’s a nice bungalow. How about this one? ’ I asked, passing him the particulars. ‘Ooh, ’ he sighed, studying the photograph carefully. ‘Is it for sale? ’ he said. I told him it was.

‘Then buy it! ’ he said, forgetting at first that on a salary of £ 600 a month it was well outside my range. Then he offered to lend me the money. I thought about it for a moment, but then said I’d rather stay independent and get a mortgage of my own. However, if that failed, perhaps we could talk again about a loan. I stressed that if I did borrow money from him it would all have to be done properly with my weekly repayments docked at source.

I rang mum’s neighbour and made an offer on the bungalow. She accepted, but I did tell her that should anyone else come along to better my offer she’d be mad not to take it.

I applied to the Bank of Ireland in Dublin for the mortgage. In the application form I simply said I worked as a gardener for Goose Productions Ltd, with no mention of Freddie Mercury.

We spent most of 1989 between London and Montreux while Freddie and Queen worked in the studio. The first few months were spent putting the final touches to their album The Miracle.

Freddie was always interested in Queen’s success in Britain and the rest of the world, but in all the time I was with him, he took no interest in how the band were doing in the USA. Queen had done well there, but the Americans weren’t too sure what to make of such an uninhibited and flamboyantly gay rock star. He had given up on the country and told me he had no intention of ever returning. The band was so universally popular elsewhere that he said it didn’t matter to him.

Not that Freddie disliked America. He owned a sensational Art Deco penthouse apartment in New York in a building so exclusive that his seriously wealthy neighbours usually frowned on rock stars, however famous they were. In Freddie’s case they made an exception as he turned out to be a model tenant.

The apartment had sensational views of the Chrysler Building and beyond. Its Art Deco decor and fittings, with lots of mirrored panels, were original, and Freddie had furnished it in keeping with the period.

In all the time Freddie and I were together the flat remained unoccupied. Gerry Stickles, the band’s tour manager, was based in America and kept an eye on the property for Freddie. Phoebe would also be despatched occasionally to take a look at the place and stay in it for a few days. On some trips Freddie would ask him to bring back a few small treasures he wanted – a beautiful crystal vase or a delicate porcelain bowl.

One story always trotted out as a so-called exclusive about Freddie’s time in America concerned his working with eccentric singer Michael Jackson. They spent only a short time together in a studio, working on collaborations which never saw the light of day because they were never actually finished.

Freddie told me they had worked on a rap number. More memorable for him was an unusual invitation from the singer. Although he had liked Michael Jackson as far as their brief friendship went, he felt he didn’t understand Freddie’s sense of humour and had even frowned on his liking of cocaine. The most memorable part of the experience was suitably wacky. Jackson offered Freddie an unusual invitation – to visit his llamas. Freddie was dressed, typically, in white trousers, but agreed.

‘That was a mistake, ’ Freddie said. ‘When we got there I was up to my knees in llama shit. ’

I was flabbergasted one day when, speaking to the Dublin branch of my bank about the mortgage, the man on the other end said: ‘I hear you work for Freddie Mercury. ’ How did he know? I hadn’t said a word. I’d done everything I could to keep that fact secret.

Still, it proved the end of my plan to buy the bungalow. I went back to Ireland just before Easter and mum’s neighbour began shouting at me. She said she’d had other offers, so I asked her why she hadn’t accepted one, as I’d suggested. What with one thing and another, my dream of buying the bungalow foundered.

Mum knew I was disappointed and made a suggestion. ‘Why don’t you have half of my garden and build your own house? At least then you’ll have exactly what you want, ’ she said. The idea had possibilities, especially as I came from a family of builders. Later that day I bought my mum a new washing machine as her old one had broken. ‘That’s lovely, ’ she said, as I wheeled it in. ‘That’s in payment for the land then! ’

When I got back to Garden Lodge, I told Freddie of mum’s offer of the land and he was very positive about the idea of building my own place. In fact he said he would help me build the house. So I contacted my nephew Jim Sheehan, a building engineer who’d studied architecture, and we arranged to get the idea to the drawing board.

The same year Freddie decided he would buy a flat in Munich with Barbara Valentin. They would split the cost of the property equally and do the same with the decorating bills; they both had equally expensive tastes. Furthermore, in the event of either of them dying, it was agreed that total ownership would pass to the other.

Freddie seemed to like the idea of sharing something very special with Barbara. She found an apartment and Freddie was enthusiastic about the project for months; then his interest waned. He knew he was unlikely to get any real use out of the flat; he would almost certainly die first. There was no escaping the fact that he was losing his battle against his illness.

Freddie had taken to covering the marks of his KS with makeup whenever he went out in public, but it didn’t seem very practical to me. So I suggested he grew a short beard, enough to cover the blemishes, which he did. The beard inevitably made headlines before long.

One day, after working on the plans for the house with Jim Sheehan, the two of us went out for a drink. It was the first day the pubs in England were allowed to open all day, and we celebrated the event with lots of drinks. I got back to Garden Lodge ten hours later, steaming drunk. From then on, with Freddie’s encouragement, I often went out to drink on my own. Freddie warned me that I could lose my friends because of our relationship and urged me to remain in contact with them. It was a kind suggestion from Freddie, who had been thinking a lot about how I would manage alone. I guess he knew I’d have to call on my friends when he was dead and I was back on my own again. And I guess he knew that my slipping out for a drink now and then helped take things off my mind.

After several meetings Jim Sheehan and I completed the plans for a rambling three-bedroomed Irish retreat. Freddie pored over them, thinking through which rooms were going where. Finally he approved them.

Then we discussed money. The Bank of Ireland mortgage had fallen through and I was going to have to take up Freddie’s offer of a loan. My family’s estimate to build the house was £ 32, 000 and Freddie agreed to the amount. The money would be a loan, and Mary would arrange for regular repayments to be taken from my wages.

In May Queen stormed the album charts with The Miracle and the single charts with ‘I Want It All’. This was their first new material for three years and was long awaited. But even before the records were in the shops Freddie wanted to push on with recording more material.

Queen were dazed by Freddie’s eagerness to return to the stresses of the studio. I don’t think any of them had thought about going back to recording so soon after briefly coming up for air after The Miracle.

But they all said ‘Yes’ in unison.

The same month, on the 20th, Freddie arranged for us to go out with the band and their partners to possibly the world’s greatest restaurant, Freddie Girardet’s, at Crissier, near Lausanne in Switzerland. A stream of fourteen delectable nouvelle cuisine dishes were served, accompanied by some equally delicious wines. Brian’s girlfriend, actress Anita Dobson, made me laugh when she said: ‘I’d rather have bangers and mash! ’ The bill for the night ran into thousands. Freddie Girardet signed our menu ‘To Freddie and Jim’.

Around the same time the same group met up for a quiet supper near the studio in a restaurant called the Bavaria. That was the night when Freddie admitted to the band that he was not well.

Someone at the table was suffering from a cold and the conversation got round to the curse of illness. Freddie still looked fairly well, but he rolled up his right trouser leg and raised his leg to the table to let the others see the painful, open wound weeping on the side of the calf.

‘You think you’ve got problems! ’ he told them. ‘Well, look at this. Look what I have to put up with. ’

Everyone was very shocked but also very sympathetic. Then, as quickly as he’d mentioned it, Freddie brushed the subject aside.

I think the band had all been well aware that Freddie was seriously ill, and his leg that night was the confirmation they had all been expecting.

Back in Britain, the papers reported that Freddie had been in a dramatic accident in the Swiss Alps when his car had spun out of control. The reports were totally without foundation.

However, rumours about his health were stirred up when he gave an interview to the DJ Mike Read for Radio One. Freddie said he didn’t want to tour again; he felt he had toured enough and was getting too old to go strutting around stages any more. The truth was that he was getting too weak to take on such a schedule ever again. The press interpreted his remarks differently, claiming that by refusing to tour he had caused another bust-up in the band and that once again they were about to split, this time for good.

‘It shows what they know, ’ said Freddie when I showed him the reports.

Far from being on the verge of going their separate ways, the band was already working on what would come to be thought of as their greatest album. It was Innuendo, their last.

While in Montreux one week with Freddie, I picked up some catalogues for beautifully made precision model train sets. The top-of-the-range was a beauty, the gold-plated Rhinegold. Freddie and I were looking at the catalogues in Garden Lodge when he said he wanted to buy me a model train and it would be a Rhinegold. A stockist near Oxford Street had one for sale and I set off to buy it at once. When I got home I began making a table for it, with miniature mountains and scenery. I couldn’t rest the board on its side, as it could get damaged too easily, so it used to be kept on top of Freddie’s Rolls Royce in the garage adjoining my workshop.

Freddie’s Rolls went back a very long time. He had bought it in the seventies, long before my time with him. Word had it that Freddie signed his very first record contract in the back of a Rolls and it was something he always wanted as soon as he could afford it. Yet he seldom used the car. I didn’t go out in it once, though I did drive it in and out of the garage when I wanted to play with my trains. In fact, Freddie preferred to be driven around in a Mercedes.

That summer I flew back to Ireland to apply for planning permission for my house. The plans were duly passed, and I rushed home to tell Freddie.

‘I’ve got the go-ahead to build my house, ’ I told him.

‘That’s our house! ’ he said, and from that moment Freddie only ever talked enthusiastically of our house. It was never ‘yours’ or ‘mine’; it was always ours – just as he always reminded me that Garden Lodge was our home.

The video for Queen’s single ‘Breakthru’, released in June, was a first – it was the first Queen video not to be made in a studio. Instead the band were to be filmed hurtling along on the back of a steam train, renamed The Miracle Express. A private railway was used for the two-day shoot: the Nene Valley, in Cambridgeshire. A location shoot depends on good weather, so we prayed for sunshine for the two days and, thankfully, got them. They were swelterers.

The location had been kept a closely guarded secret to keep the fans at bay, but they turned up in hordes all the same. The local radio station announced Queen’s visit to the whole of Cambridgeshire. When we pulled up at the Nene Valley railway station there were fans everywhere. It all added to the fabulous atmosphere.

While Freddie was filming I commandeered Graham Hamilton, Freddie’s stand-in driver, to take me to Cambridge. I had decided to buy Freddie and me some pairs of shorts. Graham and I asked one of the police officers guarding the station how far Cambridge was, and he was more than helpful.

‘I’ll escort you in, ’ he said. ‘I’m about to go back anyway. ’

So I went shopping in Cambridge that day with a police escort.

Even though Freddie was constantly working that year, he still wallowed in his domestic routine at Garden Lodge. Busy as he was, nothing ever escaped his attention.

When the koi started spawning there was so much of the stuff I had to keep pulling it out of the pool by the bucket-load to prevent the adult koi from eating them. This time many young fish survived. The holding tank wasn’t big enough for all of them so I had to cull some. While I was doing this I decided to put a small fish I’d bred the year before out of its misery. It was deformed, swam badly and had difficulty eating. I killed it with a quick rap to the head.

When Freddie came into the garden, without being told, he guessed what I’d done.

‘Where is it? ’ he said.

‘I’ve killed it, ’ I told him.

‘How? ’ he asked. When I told him he hit the roof. He said that if I ever had to kill fish again I must find a more humane way of doing so. On Freddie’s instructions I rang the fish specialist, Neil Porter, who sent me special powder to kill the fish humanely.

Getting up one morning in Garden Lodge, Freddie asked me if I could make him another small table for our bedroom – identical to the first. My face dropped.

‘What’s the matter? ’ he asked.

‘Why didn’t you ask me to do this when I was making the first one? ’ I said. ‘Now you’ll get different shades of mahogany when they could both have been made from the same cut of wood. ’

However, I hoped to be able to reproduce a similar tone with wood dyes. When Freddie found me later in the day, I was measuring up the first table.

‘Didn’t you draw plans for that table? ’ he asked.

‘No, I didn’t, ’ I said.

‘If you drew plans you wouldn’t have any trouble at all, ’ he said. ‘All you’d have to do is go back to your plans to make another. ’

‘Well, I never make plans for these things, ’ I said. He seemed surprised. His would have been a much more organised approach.

But when I showed Freddie the finished table he was delighted, and from then on the two tables sat either side of the bedroom door, covered in framed pictures and bits and pieces.

Some time later Freddie bought a number of ormolu furniture brasses.

‘I’ve got a marvellous idea, ’ he said. ‘Now I’ve got all this ormolu brass, let’s put some on those two tables you’ve made, ’ he said.

‘It will ruin them, ’ I told him. ‘These are just plain, simple little tables. ’

‘It won’t, ’ Freddie insisted. ‘They’ll work perfectly, I know they will. I know about these things. ’

He ran out of the room to find the large bag of ormolu fittings and started choosing which he wanted where. Once they were arranged, they did look good.

Freddie took great pride in the tables and always showed them off to visitors, telling them: ‘My husband made them for me. ’

I also made a hinged wooden box, just for something to do, and Freddie commandeered it for himself as soon as he saw it. He came into the workshop while I was polishing it.

‘What are you making that for? ’ he asked.

‘No reason, ’ I said. ‘I’m just tinkering about. ’

‘Can I have it for my private papers? ’ he said.

‘Of course, but perhaps I’d better put a lock on it, ’ I added. I searched everywhere for a lock small enough. In the end I took one from an old sewing machine which had belonged to my grandmother.

When I handed over the box to Freddie he put it on show in our bedroom. But he never used it to store anything. It didn’t need a lock after all.

We had some great news at Garden Lodge when Mary announced she was expecting Piers Cameron’s baby. So now, during our regular trips to Montreux, baby clothes and toys were also on the shopping list.

During the pregnancy a cruel story appeared in the papers suggesting Freddie had struck a love-pact to ‘father’ a child for Mary, her child by Piers. It was unfair and untrue. So was the suggestion that Freddie would become godfather to the baby. When the story appeared, Freddie suggested some sound advice to Mary.

‘What you should do now, darling, ’ he said, ‘is get a nice photograph of you and Piers and release it to the press. ’ But Mary preferred to deal with the matter her own way and did nothing.

In August, as the group’s single ‘The Invisible Man’ hit the streets, we had a newcomer at Garden Lodge, another kitten. I spotted it in a pet shop in Kensington High Street, where it sat on its own in the window bawling its head off. It was very big-boned with grey, white and black striped markings. I popped in and asked Colin, the owner, how much it was – £ 25. I thought it was too much, so I left it and went on my merry way. When I got back to Garden Lodge I told Phoebe and Joe about it.

‘If you like the kitten that much, why don’t you buy it? ’ they said. I told them I thought Freddie would go up the wall if another cat arrived. Then I had a change of heart and headed off to the shop. By the time I got there, three women were haggling with Colin over the kitten. They each wanted him, but balked at the prospect of having to buy a £ 5 cardboard carrier. Leaving the women to fight amongst themselves, Colin called over: ‘Yes, Jim, can I help you? ’

‘How much is the cat? ’ I asked, although I already knew the answer.

‘£ 25, ’ he replied. I took £ 25 from my pocket and gave it to him.

‘There you are, ’ I said. The cat’s sold. I hope you don’t mind, ladies. ’ And I swept out with the kitten in a cardboard carrier.

The Mews gave us a second entrance to Garden Lodge, so to avoid Freddie I slipped in that way with the cat carrier. I didn’t want to have to admit that I’d bought the cat, but blow me if I didn’t bump straight into him.

‘I’ve got something here, ’ I said. ‘If you don’t like it then I’m going to give it to Anna Nicholas. ’ Anna was an actress friend of Freddie’s who, only a few days earlier, had been asking him where she could buy some cats. I knew she’d be happy to give it a home if Freddie didn’t want it.

‘What is it? ’ Freddie asked.

‘I’m serious, ’ I said. ‘If you don’t like this …’

I opened the box and Freddie peeped inside.

‘You bastard! ’ he said. I could tell from the expression on his face that the kitten could stay. He soon decreed that the kitten should be called Romeo.

‘He’s going to be a very big cat, too, ’ I added quickly. ‘Even bigger than Oscar. ’ In fact, Romeo grew to be a real bruiser of a cat.

Not long after little Romeo had arrived I got important news from Ireland. The family were ready to start building the bungalow, so I went to Freddie for the money. He filled in a cheque and passed it across to me. When I looked at it I tried passing it back as it was for several thousand pounds more than I needed.

‘No, ’ I told him. ‘It’s only going to cost £ 32, 000 at the most. ’

‘But that’s only a reckoned figure, ’ he replied. ‘That’s why there’s a bit more. ’ He paused for a moment, then added: ‘This is a present. ’

I did protest, though probably not as strongly as I should have. Actually, it turned out to be such a big bungalow that the money Freddie gave me still wasn’t quite enough. I didn’t tell Freddie, but I secretly took out a small mortgage for £ 15, 000 to make up the shortfall.

Anyway, encouraged by Freddie, for the next nine months or so I went to and from Ireland for brief visits to see how the building work was progressing.

Each time I set off he’d tell me: ‘Take as many pictures of our house as possible. ’ I’d take either the still or video camera and I would show Freddie the latest development when I got back. He wanted to know everything.

From time to time, instead of Joe cooking supper Freddie would send one of us out to buy a takeaway meal. He liked the odd hamburger, but only Wendy hamburgers, or better still fish and chips which we’d eat straight from the paper. Freddie would insist we bought an extra six fish – one for each of the cats – and it was always my job to prepare them for them. To keep Freddie happy I had to take off all the batter and check for bones so none of them would choke.

By 1989 my dreadful, unstoppable snoring was beginning to take its toll on my life with Freddie. It kept him awake. And when I went out drinking it became even louder.

One night I was snoring my head off in bed next to Freddie and he tried turning me over so I would stop. It didn’t work. Eventually he got so annoyed that he pushed his knee into my back and it woke me up.

‘What are you doing? ’ I said.

‘Snoring! ’ he growled.

‘OK, ’ I said. ‘If it’s that bad I’ll go into the guest room. ’ So I got up and left him to sleep in peace.

The Pink Room, our sparsely furnished large guest bedroom, was only a few steps down from the master bedroom. It had a large bed and a big unit, a self-standing triple mirror and a couch so big it had been brought in through the window – Freddie decreed it was for our house in Ireland when it was finished. Off the bedroom were an en suite bathroom and a dressing area.

My move into the Pink Room was part-time at first. Most nights I’d sleep with Freddie, but if I was likely to snore I crept off to sleep on my own.

That October in Switzerland, Freddie was working with the band and suddenly gave up smoking for good. It happened like this. For most of the year Queen had been working in the tiny Mountain Studios in Montreux where the control room was minuscule. When Brian walked into the room one morning he quickly backed out, complaining that the room was far too smoky for him.

‘Right, ’ Freddie demanded, ‘no more smoking in the control room. ’ It seemed slightly unfair on the studio engineer, Dave Richards, because he couldn’t go for a cigarette whenever he wanted. But there and then is when Freddie gave up cigarettes.

Although he’d cut down to milder brands, Freddie often had catarrh on his chest first thing in the morning caused by smoking. He’d get up and start coughing and spitting. In Switzerland he got up one morning and spluttered so badly I told him he had to cut down. Then I lit up myself.

Freddie never missed smoking from that day on. He’d been smoking all his life yet he hadn’t become hooked. I was and still am.

Towards the end of 1989 Tiffany the cat was dying of cancer. One morning in October she was clearly in agony and looked as if she didn’t have long to live. Before Freddie was awake I took her to our vet, Keith Butt. He came straight to the point: ‘Jim, we really should put her down. But I’ll leave the decision up to you. ’

I left Tiffany with him and went back to the house to consult Freddie. I told him Keith’s verdict on the sick animal. Freddie was crushed. Mary arrived and Freddie told her what was going on. We all knew the decision we had to make, and after a few moments Freddie agreed. Mary accompanied me back to the vet’s, where Tiffany was given an injection and instantly fell asleep.

‘That’s it, Jim, ’ said Mary softly.

Tiffany was cremated and her ashes buried in a little casket, just as Freddie wanted, outside, and exactly in the middle of, the enormous dining room window. It was very touching.

The same month Queen released their latest single ‘Scandal’; the B-side was ‘My Life Has Been Saved’. The band’s next hit, which came out at the end of November, was The Miracle album.

That Christmas I decided to make the Rhinegold train set the centre-piece for the Garden Lodge decorations, and I transformed the board into an enchanting snow-scene. Twelve days before Christmas we started putting up the decorations in earnest. I decided the only place my train scene could go was on Freddie’s black grand piano in the lounge. I cleared all the photographs away, placed polystyrene blocks on the lid to protect it from scratches, and lowered the board in place. Then I set up the train.

When Freddie went into the lounge I heard him hitting the roof, so I ran in after him. Freddie said he loved the idea of the train-set, but he wasn’t at all happy that it was on his piano: it might scratch the lid. I pointed out the lengths I’d gone to in order to protect it, and then he calmed down and said it was fine.

That afternoon he helped me deck the two double doors from the hall with red and white painted twigs from which red and silver balls dangled.

‘There’s something not quite right, ’ Freddie said. ‘It needs a little umphing. ’

‘It’s got the balls, ’ I replied.

‘No, ’ he said. ‘It needs something else. ’ He fetched a big jar of Quality Street chocolates. ‘Here, ’ he said. ‘Throw some of these up there. ’ We both agreed they made a big difference.

On Christmas morning, Freddie came to me.

‘I’d like you to do something, ’ he said softly.

‘What? ’ I asked.

‘I’d like you to put a little bunch of flowers where Tiffany is buried. ’

Boxing Day that year was especially memorable for everyone at Garden Lodge, thanks to a little surprise laid on by Freddie. When we got to the dining table, by each place Freddie had laid a small present of outrageous costume jewellery – a brooch or a trinket – from Butler and Wilson. There was one for everybody – Phoebe, Joe, Mary, Peter Straker, Dave Clark, Graham Hamilton and his boyfriend Gordon. Some got little silver poodles on chains, others tiny golfers or a musical clef. But I got the best of all: an outrageous tie-pin set with a huge, transparent cut stone.

When Jim Beach came to visit Freddie over Christmas he fell in love with my train-set. When he decided to buy one for his son and asked me to set it up for him, I was happy to oblige. Jim was the band’s manager, but he was always very much their employee. I got on very well with him, but I don’t think he could understand the relationship Freddie and I had; nor did it matter. He knew I made Freddie happy, so that made him happy, too.

The New Year started with Jim trying to find a new record deal for Queen in America. They had been with Capitol for a number of years but weren’t happy with their treatment, so the band bought back the rights to their back catalogue in the USA. It put them in a strong negotiating position.

Early in 1990, when we’d had Romeo for several months, Freddie and I were walking into the conservatory, quickly followed by four of the cats. Suddenly Romeo turned on Goliath, Delilah and Miko and starting fighting. I looked at Freddie and called out ‘Rambo! ’

‘What do you mean, Rambo? ’ he asked. ‘Watch him, ’ I said. ‘He’s attacking all the other cats. He’s Rambo. ’ It was a nickname which stuck.

In Ireland I didn’t know what to do about the flooring in our bungalow. In the end I asked Freddie what I should do. He asked what the options were and I mentioned white Canadian maple for the lounge, which I could get cheaply through a family contact.

‘Find out how much it will cost! ’ he said.

Two weeks later Freddie returned to the subject. ‘Have you found out how much the maple will cost? ’ he asked.

I told him the price I’d been quoted.

‘OK, ’ he said. ‘I’ll pay for that. It will be a present to you. ’

Soon we were back into a hectic schedule bouncing between Mountain Studios, Montreux, and Metropolis Studios in west London, where Freddie and the band were laying down tracks for their final album, Innuendo. For months we ate, slept and drank Innuendo.

In February Queen was honoured with an award for their outstanding contribution to British music by the British Phonographic Industry in a ceremony at the Dominion Theatre. Freddie didn’t look well even though he was caked in thick make-up for the television cameras.

After the ceremony, a party was held at the Groucho Club to celebrate Queen’s twenty-one years together. It was a celebrity-packed event, with guests including George Michael, Liza Minnelli, Barry Humphries, Michael Winner and Patsy Kensit. Freddie held court at a table at the back of the club. When Rod Stewart arrived Freddie introduced me to him as ‘My man, Jim’. I was reminded of Freddie’s joke about wanting to form a band with Rod and Elton John, called Teeth, Nose and Hair.

Martha Brett accompanied me to that party and was very dressed up. She was a huge Rod Stewart fan. While Freddie and Rod were talking she kept staring at him. Then Freddie in turn started staring at me.

‘Who’s that you’re with? ’ he asked. ‘I don’t know her. ’

‘That’s Martha! ’ I said. From the Town House Studios. ’

‘Is it? ’ he asked. He looked a bit harder and then burst out laughing.

Later in the evening an extremely imaginative cake was wheeled out. It was of a Monopoly board, but all the property squares were Queen hits.

Before he became front-man for Queen, Freddie studied at Ealing College of Art in west London. He had long given up painting, but one day he got a sudden urge to try again. One of us was sent to buy up a small artists’ supply shop for brushes and materials.

For several weeks he would lose himself for hours at a time in his sketching and painting. He tried painting a portrait of Delilah but, like so many of his pictures, it was never finished.

He only ever finished two pictures, for Joe and Phoebe, and they came about quite by chance. Freddie was flicking through a Sotheby’s catalogue one afternoon and stopped at a modern portrait for sale, drawn in straight lines.

‘I could do that! ’ he said.

He grabbed a sketch pad and a minute or so later he had finished. He held it up and it was a perfect copy.

‘Can I have it? ’ Joe said.

Freddie signed it and gave it to him. Then Phoebe asked for the same again and after a few minutes Freddie had dashed off another copy.

Freddie loved art. He favoured Japanese and Impressionist paintings and had something of an aversion to modern art. If he came across modern pictures in auction catalogues he would scoff; his least favourites were massive expanses of canvass painted a single colour or featuring a couple of straight lines.

‘What’s the point of it? ’ he’d say. ‘It’s not art. ’

A few days later we went to Montreux. We arrived in the early evening and there was an absolutely stunning sunset falling over the lake. Freddie wanted to take a photograph of the two of us, standing in that romantic sunset, but we didn’t have a camera. He became agitated. He had set his heart on the romantic picture.

‘Don’t worry, ’ I said. ‘We’ll get a photograph taken. ’

It is one of my greatest regrets that we never did get around to it.

One of the first things Freddie liked to do when he arrived in Montreux was look at the swans on the lake. He referred to them as ‘my’ swans and as soon as he’d seen them he felt he could quickly settle back into the Swiss way of life.

That day, after strolling over to see his swans, Freddie sat at the water’s edge and was inspired to write a song called ‘A Winter’s Tale’. It was a Christmas song about Switzerland and life in the mountains. It was never heard. Freddie recorded the song, I’m certain of that, but the tape has never seen the light of day.

Freddie usually arranged to start work around noon. He was suffering from a drastic loss of weight. Still, he insisted on getting up by himself in the morning, and he took no longer than usual to dress and have his cup of tea before setting off for the studio.

Increasingly he would ask Terry to stop somewhere on the way to the studio. ‘I want to get out and walk from here, ’ he’d say.

The first time it happened Freddie appeared to be deep in thought. He asked Terry to park by the lake. He wanted to be alone for a few minutes and he walked very slowly to the opposite side of the lake to the swans. He stayed with them for a few minutes, then slowly walked back to us.

‘That’s it, ’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough. Time to go to work. ’

After a while Freddie found walking very difficult. I gave him a walking stick, but he wouldn’t use it. He agreed to try it just once, but that was the only time. Nor would he use a crutch. Managing without help was part of his strength. He had to keep doing it on his own for as long as he was able.

I’m going to keep going until Mother Nature says, “No, you can’t go any further”, ’ he said.

One day back in London Freddie and I headed out with Graham Hamilton and his boyfriend Gordon because Freddie wanted to buy some glasses from Thomas Goode’s, in Bond Street. He also bought a canteen of cutlery for our bungalow in Ireland. I told him I was popping out for a cigarette but went straight to the Lalique glass shop in nearby Mount Street. I knew the woman there as Freddie was one of their regular customers. The manageress came over.

‘I want to buy a little surprise present, ’ I told her. She knew at once who it would be for.

‘How about a cat? ’ she suggested. The cat she had in mind was glass and mounted on a plinth. It was ideal. I bought it and they wrapped it.

When Freddie and I went for tea, at Richloux, I gave him the present.

‘What did you buy that for? ’ he asked.

‘It’s just a little present for you, ’ I said.

Once, Freddie was invited to Lalique shop in Mount Street when Madame Lalique herself made a rare visit. She was the managing director of the company and had arrived in London to engrave her signature on a few pieces of her expensive lead crystal for favoured clients.

Freddie took Mary with him and returned with three beautiful clocks. His was signed ‘To Freddie’ and he had given one to Mary, which was also signed. Mine, which wasn’t signed, was engraved with delicate irises running down both sides of the clock-face. Our two clocks took pride of place in his bedroom on either side of the bed.

When Mary gave birth to her baby son, Richard, in 1990, Freddie was thrilled. We visited mother and son in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital many times and, when they went home, made many quick trips to Mary’s flat to see how they were doing. We all gave Richard something special. Freddie arrived with armfuls of designer baby clothes bought during our trips to Switzerland as well as a small mountain of soft toys. I made a traditional wooden rocking cradle and then stencilled carousel horses and smiling clowns on the outside. To complete the cradle, Phoebe bought some beautiful linen bedding for it. Sadly the cradle was never used for Richard, but it was put to some good use – for storing the scores of cuddly toys.

Freddie was really delighted for Mary when Richard came into the world. He loved holding him for a few minutes at a time but it was clear Freddie wasn’t one of life’s natural fathers; he liked children but from a safe distance.

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