Death of a friend

I met Brian Murray in the mid 1990s when I was seconded from the IT Services department at St Andrews to the University Library to look after their expanding numbers of PCs used by both staff and students. 

Brian was one of the full-time book shelvers and he and I would sit together at coffee break time in the staff room in the library basement. He always had a plastic box with sandwiches, one of which he would have with his coffee to keep him going until lunchtime. On Fridays we would often go along to one of the pubs on The Scores for a pint of beer and a bowl of chips. 

I don't know how long he had been working at the Library but I'm fairly sure he had worked elsewhere earlier in his working life, possibly in the armed forces. 

Libraries often employ more women than men and this was certainly true of the university library back in the 90s. I think Brian was pleased to find another bloke to chat to, albeit someone a good 20 years younger than he was. The job of a shelver was quite a solitary occupation, pushing your trolley round the quiet floors of the library. Most shelvers worked part-time, some of them being students, and Brian might well have been the only full-timer. 

I would occasionally bump into him coming out of the lift as I was one of the few other members of staff who had access to the lifts, though for me it was moving computer equipment around the building rather than books. 

When I left the university in 2002 Brian can't have been far off retirement. He was the only person in the library who I kept in touch with - we sent Christmas cards to each other every year with the usual brief messages with bits of news. I was saddened to hear that his wife Jean passed away a couple of years back. I never met her but he always spoke of her with affection. I suspect she made the sandwiches for him every morning and would have his tea waiting for him when he got home after a hard day of shelving books.

I posted a card to him just a few days ago but something told me that I might not get one back this year. I did a search on him today and found that he had indeed passed away in the summer.

It was a pleasure knowing you Brian. You were a real gent. RIP.