So farewell then Mark E Smith, now fallen leader of The Fall, who died on January 24 aged 60. Fibbers boss Tim Hornsby, booker of Smith's band for many York gigs through the years, pays tribute.

YOU get warned about doing a show with Mark E Smith. Late on stage, short sets, drunk, cantankerous.

But the many times I’ve promoted Mark, yes, he was very definitely drunk but also a model of good temper and co-operation, performing long sets and even encores. Unbelievably in recent years he once stood at the front door shaking hands as people came in.

I was reminded this week that he once passed me the set list through a car window and asked if I “thought it was all right”. I’m also reminded that a fan of 60-plus Fall shows praised one particular Fibbers show as the best he had ever seen.

Mark never turned up for soundchecks, apart from once when a loud banging was heard from the front door. Our hero lurched in, much to the band’s surprise, and demanded all the lights be turned off while he gave one song his best effort before sliding off to the green room to make a start on the routinely substantial rider. In the meantime, observant house lampy Andy Smith had leapt behind him on to the stage and capped the smoke detector so Mark’s Benson & Hedges didn’t set off the sprinklers.

In the early days, Mark would be cornered in small Manchester pubs by random chancer bands and, always one to help new music, would tell them: "Come along to York, lads, and you can support." And on the night, of course, the back lane would be thronged with battered vans from the M62, disgorging a selection of Manc indie bands – and their mates – all with a familiar tale, “Hi mate, we’re supporting The Fall”. No, you’re not lads but you’re very welcome to stay for the show.

And, in York, Mark could be found on the afternoon of the show lingering in a pub by the river handing out guest list places to whoever bought him a whisky and Red Bull.

Yes, a man with immeasurable man-of-the-people lyricism, oft impenetrable logic but always with his singular independence, total and undisguised disdain for self-proclaimed authority and the only man to appear on Jools Holland’s show with the stipulation, "as long as he doesn’t tinkle along with us on the joanna".

In an era of committee-composed music weak as maiden’s water, little or no imaginative vocabulary or delivery, and samples samples samples, Mark E Smith’s urgent and angsty guitar indie almost entirely stood alone.

I’m going to miss him getting tangled in mic leads, fiddling with the amps and generally rambling around looking confused but always in total control of yet another packed house.

And here’s Mark, pictured in typical pose, this time crouched behind the cabs in Fibbers Mk2. Only he will know why.

Fooled all of us all the time, Mark…