The first week of June has become full of sad memories in recent years.

Yesterday we remembered our wise and funny former leader Charles Kennedy who died a year ago. Five years ago today, I woke to a phone call telling me that our much loved Director of Campaigns in Scotland, Andrew Reeves, had died.

I had known Andrew for years, first meeting him on Cix which was the first Lib Dem online community. I was so thrilled when he moved to Scotland in 2008. He arrived in Edinburgh on a Friday lunchtime. By Saturday morning, even though he didn’t start until the next week, he was leafletting with us in Cowdenbeath.

He was one of these people who could get you to do more than you ever thought you could do, to climb higher than you ever thought – and he’d make that climb such fun.

On the day he died, I remember little except being furious with the sun for shining so strongly. I wrote this which summed up my memories of him:

I could tell you all about getting to know him Way Back When on Cix, which was the way Lib Dems communicated online in the dark ages before Twitter and Facebook and blogs. About the wild and wonderful Glenrothes by-election campaign, where the ever competitive Mr Reeves played darts with all and sundry, sending the little arrows flying much closer to my head than I was strictly comfortable with. He was forgiven, though, for fixing the boiler, which resolutely refused to come on at weekends. About the first day he arrived in Scotland, a beautiful day like today, and he chose to spend it not getting settled but delivering leaflets in Cowdenbeath with Willie Rennie, Elspeth and I. About the time we went to the ice hockey so he could show me in real life what the terms like hooking and slashing I’d seen in the match reports I’d proof read (or in our parlance, grammar bitched) actually meant. He was a staunch supporter of the Edinburgh Capitals and ran their Twitter account during matches. He had such an eye for working out what was going on and reporting it quickly and accurately. About the time this man, who would never miss an opportunity for smut, tweeted to the world that my birthday was on National Orgasm Day. About the guy who was totally devoted to his husband Roger and their two cats, Loco and Tazzer, and Madron and Zennor before them. About how his cheery support helped me so much when I was ill and stuck at home.

The same post has links to other tributes to the big man.

Andrew was a total twitterholic. On the day of his funeral, we thought it would be appropriate to have a mass tweet-in of our memories of him. Mike Moore read some of them out during his outstandingly brilliant eulogy. Mark Pack recorded them for posterity and you can read them here.

Half a decade on, he is still in my thoughts whenever there’s a big bit of Lib Dem news or whenever there’s a bit of smutty innuendo around. I miss him and I know so many of his Lib Dem family do too.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social