About

Christopher Barr can remember the drive to the hospital. His father Benny Barr, who had been little more than a stranger for much of Barr’s life, had fallen over and hit his head. “But the doctors said they thought something more ‘sinister’ was going on,” Barr says. “That word still echoes with me.” He drove through the Belfast traffic in total silence.

Minutes before Barr arrived at the hospital, Benny’s doctors had broken the news. The blood tests from the fall confirmed Benny had advanced cancer - tumours in his lungs, spine, liver, heart. “He was fucked, basically,” Barr says. “No return ticket.” By Tom Seymour