Coops and I met on a drunken occasion during the first week of university at our student halls in Leeds, Sugarwell Court. We lived in different blocks but there was a courtyard in the middlle of all the blocks where everyone would sit during those early days getting to know one another after nights out. We immediately bonded over music, and before long we were spending most of our exstensive free time together hanging out and listening to the amazing collection of indie music he had brought with him on his desktop computer in his little halls room. We formed a crew with a few other guys who lived opposite and for that first year we were either in Coops' room, in Dave's kitchen, in the halls bar, or on a night out in Leeds.

Coops was the level headed friend we all needed and his room would often provide a place to escape and get some advice when one of us had inevitably done something stupid, although saying that Coops himself had his moments. He was passionate about his English course which set him apart from the rest of us and we all enjoyed his self styled bohemian image, carrying around a book of poetry to read when waiting to cross the road which always made me laugh as we lived in a rough bit of Leeds. 

I often think back on that time. A song or a conversation will suddenly make me think of Coops and our time together, spending the days doing very little but having some of the best times of our lives.