‘Nevin, his brother and our dad were not perfect but they were extraordinary’
Sister of Ulster star recalls grief of losing three family members in slurry tank tragedy six years ago
NEVIN SPENCE, a talented centre with the Ulster rugby team, was on the cusp of Irish honours aged just 22.
The sporting world was his oyster. But on September 15, 2012, he lost his life in the most tragic of circumstances.
In the worst farming accident in more than 20 years in Ulster, Nevin, his father Noel (58) and brother Graham (30) were taken from the family they adored as they tried to rescue their dog from a slurry tank.
Such were the bonds of family love that Nevin’s sister Emma courageously put her life on the line in an effort to rescue her father and brothers.
Almost six years on from the tragedy at the family farm in Hillsborough, Co Down, Emma, who needed hospital treatment after trying to save her loved ones, pays an emotional tribute to the three men.
“They were hard-working men. They were not perfect but they were genuine. They were best friends,” she said.
“They were godly men – they didn’t talk about God, they just did God.
“They were ordinary – but God made them extraordinary.
“Dad was the one you probably saw taking up half the Drumlough Road with the tractor.
“He is the one who greeted you with a thump on the arm, who christened you with a new nickname no matter who you were.”
With a tremor in her voice, she added: “To me, he was the one at the kitchen table listening to my every worry and telling me the truth – whether I wanted to hear it or not.”
Graham was “driven by the thought of improving farming” and was “unashamedly Nevin’s biggest fan”, Emma recalls.
She added: “He was a gentle giant who doted on his two children. He is the one who came alive when he talked about farming. He is looking at me when I look at (his children) Nathan and Georgia”.
Many tributes were paid to Nevin after he died. The Ulster physio remarked: “I have no son but if I did I would want them to be like Nevin and have his values.”
Emma started to see the family farm anew after her tragic loss. As an artist, she has drawn on it for inspiration.
She said: “To most people, looking at something like hedges, they would see only weeds. But I was stopping to look at them and recognising the beauty in them, which is why I wanted to paint them.”
There were down times on the farm as well. Emma recalled: “I remember the first spring after the accident. It had always been a happy time, seeing the cows going out into the fields after the winter.
“But that first spring tore me apart because dad, Graham and Nevin weren’t there.
“Now, with the passage of time, I think of the joy that the boys got from something like that. It still hurts, but I am trying to accept that this is life.”
Emma said of Nevin: “He has left a lasting impression on those who knew him. I have heard it said that Nevin, his brother and father have spoken more in death than in life.”
The impression of meeting Emma and her sister Laura is of a shaft of light illuminating the darkness of family tragedy.
She is fiercely proud of Nevin’s achievements and of his humility. She said: “Often I was congratulated on Nevin’s achievement, then headed home to ask, ‘So, Nev, what have you done?’
“The answer would be, ‘Nothing, I don’t know’ only for me to find he had been selected to train in the Ireland camp, or won young player of the year.
“As my mum put it, ‘Nevin was special’.
“Maybe what was even more special was if you had the chance to encounter him in your life.”
‘It still hurts but I am trying to accept that this is life’