Meet Brian who would have been 72 today. My brother is unforgettable in so many ways. Not the easiest sibling but by far the most interesting. Irritating, loving, curious, stubborn, creative, intelligent, untidy, self-indulgent, selfish, selfless, hippy, eco warrior, dreamer, hopeless optimist – the list is endless
I should have guessed early on in his life that he wasn’t going to grow up to be your normal run of the mill boy when I found him digging holes at the bottom of the garden aged 8.
“What are you doing,” I asked.
“Digging to get to Australia.”
He thought if he dug deeper enough, he would reach Australia albeit he said the people might be upside down. And I believed him and joined in. He had a huge influence on me growing up until I stopped believing all his stories. He was a dreamer.
He hated school and he hated authority but was very bright. He lived in America and the UK, had 4 children and 4 wives and many friends. His last abode was Glastonbury – where else. He was a colourful character. Diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer in January 2011 he died in March 2011. This was the last video he posted if you have a few minutes it gives a good flavour of who he was.
We don’t choose our family and there were times when I really wished he was not my brother. But I loved him, and he loved me, and he was an integral part of our family. I forgave him for losing one of our children who he was teaching to hand out leaflets and do a bit of begging in Camden Market, when he called me at 3 in the morning to pick him and two of his children up from Glastonbury cause his car had broken down, when he arrived back from Heathrow airport after we thought he had finally left because his rental car had run out of petrol and he had no money to refill it, when his ex-wives wrote to me demanding money, when I repeatedly bailed him out of sticky situations, when the debt collectors arrived at my door looking for a Brian Felstein “never heard of him” was always my reply, when he invited me and some friends to Cornwall to take acid (I was young and foolish ) and then forgot the acid and when his long lost daughter who not only had I never met but didn’t know of her existence turned up after he died.
But he bought excitement and diversity to our family. The boys all have wonderful memories of Brian adventures of the annual Christmas mistletoe shenanigans when he dressed up as a wizard and sold mistletoe in central London. Our house was left with shreds of mistletoe for months after he had departed. Of the all-night Rave’s that he used to put on under London Bridge and his alternative perspective on life. I loved him, and I miss him. Just hope no more children appear.
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Happy Birthday Brian.
“Lets be careful out there”
Serendipity Me 
How lucky he was to have had you for a sister.
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