My son was beautiful inside and out

I KNEW Eamon was special even before he could walk. He was inquisitive and happy, with an amazing energy and was so very beautiful, inside and out. Everywhere he went near our home in Lytham St Annes, Lancs, people gravitated to him. It was as if he were a magnet. As a baby, they’d crowd round him. All through school, college and later travelling through the U.S., Bulgaria, Spain and Luxembourg, he collected people. He was always surrounded by friends — and so loved. Eamon’s energy was extraordinary. He could put his hand to anything — school work, art, guitar — was the most wonderfully loving big brother and always wanted to know: ‘What’s next? What’s tomorrow?’ When his father Nabil died in 2016 following a short battle with leukaemia, Eamon took over his barber’s shop in Penge, South-East London, and was a natural, with dozens of loyal customers and a flair for creative styles. Most of all, he loved motorbikes. We had a bit of family land and, from the age of five, he and his brother Logan and sister Ciara had been riding off-road bikes. He loved the freedom, the excitement. Everything he did in life was done in a hurry, at top speed. He died on the first anniversary of his father’s death. He was on his way to meet a friend for lunch. He’d never had an accident before. But somehow, in a quiet residential street, he overtook a van and lost control. Afterwards, tributes started coming, hundreds and hundreds and from all over, many from people he’d met for just a few hours but had loved him.