He had prayed for a miracle. Part of him hoped almost until the end that redemption would come. Back at Garden Lodge in Kensington, having left his Territet, Montreux apartment for the final time – a pained departure that meant he would never see his beloved daughter again – Freddie gave in to the inevitable.

Though his eyesight was deserting him rapidly, he tried distracting himself by returning to his original preoccupations of drawing and painting. He didn’t stick at them for long, however. He was no longer up to it.

Those around him knew for certain that he had resigned himself to his fate when he announced that he was stopping his medication. From then on, he refused everything except pain relief. His decline accelerated thereafter, and was excruciating.

All the way from Memphis

‘There is a rhythm in the air around Memphis, there always has been. I don’t know what it is, but it’s magic.’ Carl Perkins

It's not so easy or safe to stroll down Beale Street in the city with more songs than any other, but this was a memorable trip back into musical roots.

Read my Memphis trip report...

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Made In Heaven: visiting Freddie's Duck House

I never visited the Duck House during Freddie's lifetime. The place on the very outskirts of the municipality of Montreux, beyond Clarens, was his secret haven, his hidden retreat. It was to this private house that he returned regularly.

We now know why. His only child, conceived during a brief affair in 1976 with the wife of a very close friend, now lived just across the border, in France, with her birth mother and stepfather. From the Duck House, Freddie was able to visit his little girl and her family without arousing suspicion; while she, accompanied by her nanny, Maria, was easily able to visit him.