talent existed, it could be encouraged, much as his own had been encouraged by his teacher in Antrim. Many attest to his untiring generosity with help and advice. His 1972 marriage to Maggie Ogilvie ended amicably in 1979. Maggie Ogilvy remarried to Charles Manicom, and bore him a daughter, Charlotte. Cochrane remained a close friend of Maggie. Charles Manicom was happy to let Cochrane remain part of the family. Cochrane helped raise Charlotte. Cochrane and Charlotte were devoted to each other. That the arrangement worked so well is a tribute to the good nature and love of all concerned. Cochrane had little time for organised religion, especially of the triumphalist proselytising sort. In later life he became interested in Buddhism, but he was fundamentally a humanist. Cochrane would put himself out not only for friends but for anyone in need, sometimes at considerable risk to himself. On one occasion, in 1987, he was in an Oxford Street underground station late at night when he saw a group of eight to ten men beating up two others. He said, "They were punching and kicking one in particular, really laying into him. There were a lot of other people around but everyone else was just letting it happen. They probably would have killed that bloke if I hadn't stepped in." In this incident he received severe, lasting injuries that badly affected his ability to write and involved him in long, largely fruitless proceedings with the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. His resilience kept him going despite ill health and increasing blindness, and he continued to write novels even when publishing fashions made it increasingly difficult to publish anything quirky and original. All Cochrane's novels were well received by critics. A new edition of F for Ferg was published in 2018 by Turnpike Books and a publication launch at the Seamus Heaney HomePlace involved a discussion of Cochrane's work with Maurice Leitch, Cochrane's friend and fellow novelist, Jan Carson, a contemporary novelist, and the academic Eamonn Hughes. His later fiction was more difficult to publish, and by his death all his works were out of print. Ian Cochrane's voice was distinctive in modern British fiction. Many readers found his novels to be funny, bawdy, blasphemous, touching and sad. He is said to express the feelings of the marginalised: the young, the unemployed, and people nearly insane or unrespectable. His portrayal of their clashes with