The call no mother wants - read Ruby Brown's moving interview following the death of her son Richard in a motorbike accident BIKER Richard Brown from Lisbellaw phoned his mother on Good Friday to ask her how she was doing, like the caring son so often did. But half an hour later he was dead. The 44-year-old father-of-four known by his friends as ‘Dick’ died instantly after the motorbike he was riding collided with a tractor between Brookeborough and Fivemiletown shortly after 8pm.

Not long after the collision, Mr. Brown’s only son Dean arrived at the scene - just by chance - where he discovered that his father, biking companion and friend had been killed.

Mr. Brown’s funeral on Easter Monday was attended by a large number of bikers who followed the cortège as it made its way from his home at Forthill Park to Lisbellaw Parish Church. Leading the mourners through the packed village were his mother Ruby, siblings Mervyn and Kelly, and beloved children Stacey (23), Hannah (16), Jodie (12) and Dean (21).

In a moving interview with The Impartial Reporter this week, Mr. Brown’s mother described her son as “my rock” and recalled her last conversation with him.

“Richard was a fantastic son and would have done anything for you. I don’t know how I am going to cope without him. I was only speaking to him half an hour before he died. He phoned me, like he always did. He said: ‘Well, mother. How are you now?’ I said: ‘I am fine, son’. We talked about dinner and so on and then he said: ‘I’ll chat you later.’ I said: ‘OK, son – you take care’. Those were the last words I had with him. I am so glad that I got to have the last words with him,” she said.

But later, Mrs. Brown received a devastating phone call from a biker who had been accompanying her son on Friday night’s fatal journey.

“His friend phoned me and I think he knew Richard was dead but he didn’t know how to tell me. He said: ‘Richard has had a bad accident on the bike’. ‘But I was just talking to him’, I said, and he said: ‘Ruby, he is not responding’.

“All I could think about was Dean, beautiful Dean, who is beautiful like his daddy. I phoned him and said: ‘Daddy has just been involved in a bad smash’. I told him where and he said: ‘Oh my God, Nanny. I am just coming on the scene now – I’ll phone you back’,” explained Mrs. Brown, adding how she had heard the siren from the ambulance racing to the collision.

In a heart-rending coincidence, Dean had been returning from Fivemiletown when he received the call from his Grandmother about the collision. Ten agonising minutes later, he phoned her back.

“Dean was roaring and crying down the phone. He said: ‘Nanny, Nanny – he’s dead, he’s dead’. I said: ‘Please don’t say that, please Dean, don’t’. He said: ‘No, no – he’s dead. He’s gone, he’s gone. The paramedics have tried everything - they’ve put a white sheet over him’,” recalled Mrs. Brown. “I was glad Dean was with him; glad his son was with him at the last,” she added.

Paying tribute to her son, Mrs. Brown said he was a hard-working, family man who lived for his children, saying: “His bike came first, then his car, then his kids got everything else.” As mourners packed into Lisbellaw Parish Church on Easter Monday to pay their final respects the service had to be relayed on speakers to the many people who stood outside.

“There must have over 1000 people at the funeral because everybody loved Richard. The bikers, including Dean, did a burnout for him - you can see the marks on the road - and you should have heard the rev of them. I have never seen such a tribute to a biker before.

“A man who was in the army said to me afterwards that he had never seen a funeral in Lisbellaw like it, and will never see one like it again. It just showed all of us what people thought of him.” Mrs. Brown recalled prior to her son’s funeral being asked what she wanted to place inside his coffin. Her response: “I’ll give him my heart, I have nothing else to give.” Fighting back tears as she looked at a photograph of her son, she reiterated to this newspaper how she will never forget the man who brought her and the family so much joy.

Meanwhile, Police are appealing to anyone who witnessed the crash or anyone who was travelling on the Belfast Road, Fivemiletown around 8.15pm to contact the Collision Investigation Unit at Steeple Police Station on the new non-emergency number 101.