“Over the last few years - with him living in New York and me in London - our connection was by email,” Eno continued. “We signed off with invented names: some of his were mr showbiz, milton keynes, rhoda borrocks and the duke of ear.”

“I received an email from him seven days ago. It was as funny as always, and as surreal, looping through word games and allusions and all the usual stuff we did. It ended with this sentence: ‘Thank you for our good times, brian. they will never rot’. And it was signed ‘Dawn’. I realise now he was saying goodbye.”