Grandfather recalls his last conversation with grandson

Three weeks ago the heartbroken man insisted, despite ill health, that he would carry his grandson's coffin as his family, neighbours and friends gathered to accompany Kyle's remains for their final journey to Ballyoan Cemetery.

Kyle was William's blue eyed boy, and, sitting in William's front room listening to the quiet-spoken man try and articulate his feelings for his grandson, you get a sense of how lost the family is in their grief. For William there aren't words enough to truly explain how he feels.

It was William's nephew who had been at the shop nearby who told William that things had taken a turn for the worse that day.

"Calum had heard that somebody had been pulled out of the river and it was Kyle. It is hard to put a time on it when something happened, but when the police came they asked me had Kyle any identifying marks or tattoos and I said he had a tattoo 'Bonnes' down his neck. After that the police mouths moved, but I didn't hear anything and that was the last that I heard of from the police," he said recalling the events of April 14.

So great was the affection that existed between William and Kyle, that 'granda' was the last person Kyle spoke to every night before Kyle went home.

"He would say 'Are you coming to the door?' and I would go to the door and wait until he went over the fence and up to the steps and I'd say 'Right, goodnight' and he'd go 'Right,' and he'd wave and away he'd go home. In fact I think I must have been the last person that he spoke to on the phone, because he had rung and asked me could he say out until 7.15pm and I said yes, that that was quite alright and to come down then and he could have his tea. By 7.15pm the young fella was in the morgue," says William, grappling for emotional control.

"Between that space of time when I spoke to him on the phone and the time that we had originally been told I would like to know what happened," he says, quietly, adding: "The sensationalism in reporting is hurting the family, what has happened to us is a devastating thing enough without that."

Since the events which claimed Kyle's life, the couple have been inundated with visits from Kyle's friends. That contact is something that is bringing hope and light into the couple's life again.

"We had one young fella who came here and sat where you are for three hours and they'd tell us 'If there is anything we can do we will do it for you, you only have to ask'. All his friends and all the tributes and the guard of honour by his friends, all of that has given us a glimmer of hope.

"The neighbours have never left us. We moved down here two-and-a-half years ago, and since this devastating losing of Kyle I have met more people in two nights than I met in the first two-and-a-half years that I moved down here. That speaks for itself," he said.