Unsung hero

About 23 years ago, on a lowering, wet, autumn afternoon, I ran out onto the sloping football pitch at Stephenson Way Primary School and warmed up for kick-off. At the top end of the field, the purple-shirted opposition milled around and took turns crossing and slamming the football into the crudely pegged net.

During such rituals, I always took a moment to observe the competition. On that particular occasion I was struck by one kid. He had white-blonde hair, cropped short like Action Man , a frame two years ahead of his age and a bellowing voice that marked him out as the leader of the pack. I hoped to goodness he was a defender and not a striker.

As I took my position at the heart of defense, the two captains came together, the blonde Goliath won the toss and lined up at centre-forward. Oh, great - I was marking the big kid. He was physical, determined, a tough opponent for someone as slight as I was, but, thankfully, his ability with a football did not match his intimidating presence and my school took the spoils. That was my first encounter with the kid they called "Ibby".

Our paths would cross again many times. We moved on to the same secondary school where we were assigned to the same house. He was a person I came to admire and perhaps fear in equal measure. I actually question whether Ibby elicited fear. I think wariness would be more apt a description. But then, I do recall a few instances when I was most definitely teetering on the precipice of fear. One day I could be sharing a table with him at lunch, the next I would be fearing a firm fist in the stomach. Some might have considered him a bully. Maybe he was - aren't we all in some ways given certain conditions. I just thought he was hard. Besides, for all that he could be construed a bully boy by definition, he always seemed to have a certain sense of honour about him. That trait set him apart from the general bully element of toe-rag types, usually allied to groups, who thrived on malice. Ibby was a stand-alone character. Ibby really was hard.

I have several memories of the kid. I will share my favourite, the one that I have told many times down the years for laughs. The incident occurred during a PE lesson when I was about 14. We were playing rugby. I picked up the ball in the right-wing position, jinked past one tackle, rode a second and sprinted towards the try line. Behind me, I suddenly heard Ibby in pursuit. He was usually faster than I was and if he caught me, I knew I would feel it...for the next week! As I kicked up a gear to what I always thought was full speed, Ibby closed to within striking range. I had about 20 yards still to run when his words came cold and clear to my ears.

"Drop the ball or I'll kill you."
I kept running. Ibby kept closing.

"I said drop it or I'll break your scrawny neck!"

Of course, I couldn't drop the ball. I would have been the laughing stock - the soft kid - and my pursuer would have had even less respect for me. Nor could I risk being caught. If Ibby sensed the slightest weakness, if he were to succeed in grabbing a hold of my collar, he would make me pay with a few blows that would leave me bruised and sore. It is funny what fear will do to a person. As my arms and legs pumped away for all they were worth, from somewhere within, I extracted an extra burst of pace and strength that took me to the try line. I grounded the ball and kept running. Ibby kept chasing. The teacher blew his whistle...then blew it again and again. I kept running. Ibby kept up the chase. I arced back round to the safety of the teacher, followed by a smirking Ibby.

The last time I saw him, it was a Saturday morning and I was on my way to play 5-a-side football. We were 16 and he had not long left school. I was doing my A Levels. I remember it like it was yesterday. Ibby marching towards me, proud and erect in military uniform. As we passed one another he barely broke stride and maintained a metronomic focus.

"Now then," he said.

"All right, Ibby," I replied.

Everyone knew he was in cadets and wanted to join the army. Through the passing of the years, I have, on occasion, wondered what happened to Ibby or Ibbo as he was also known. I always imagined him as a commando and toyed with the notion that he could have made the SAS. Even in his teens there was an almost unnerving quality about him, a steely, ice-cool determination that made one think the kid was one of a rare breed. Sometimes I admired it. Other times I just thought he was a nutjob.

I found out just this week that Ibby, or Stephen Paul Ibinson to give him his full name, died in Afghanistan at the end of April. I also discovered that, following our brief, Saturday morning encounter, his life scaled remarkable heights of achievement.

He joined 2 Para at around the time I last saw him and served in Northern Ireland. At some stage he made the grade with special forces. He set up his own private investigation firm in Belfast at the age of 27 and turned his skills to undercover reporting. He put his life on the line as he infiltrated neo-nazi groups and dog-fighting gangs; tracked down murderers and paedophiles. He even won a Bafta for a BBC Panorama investigation. The father of three received numerous death threats in his time but never any public recognition of his feats, at least not while still living. The nature of his work did not allow him to be publicly credited.

Ibby died while infiltrating an Opium ring in Afghanistan. One would expect that Taleban gunfire or perhaps a mortar shell would have claimed him. In the end, it was a heart attack.

I was not a friend of his. I simply went to the same school as him. I know nothing of Stephen Ibinson the man other than what I have read in a few news reports and obituaries. What I have read has caused me to reflect and ponder. Here is a man who grew up on the streets of my small home town, who walked the corridors of my school. A man with whom I once shared the sports field, the dinner hall and the classroom. A man who made a difference in his short life, who literally placed himself on the front line time and again for the greater good.

It is strange how people have an effect on our lives. On the face of it, he was merely a peripheral character in the story that is my life and yet, on reflection, Ibby has perhaps had a greater impact on me than I had ever really considered. I doubt that I even registered in his thoughts after that last fleeting meeting but the fact that I have certain encounters indelibly etched into my memory says a great deal about his effect on me. If I am honest, I harboured a certain admiration for him. In saying that, I must confess that any admiration was also tempered by intermittent moments spent wondering if Stephen Ibinson would turn out to be a "psycho" or a hero. Maybe there was a bit of both in him, I'm not in a position to judge. I am not out to deify him either. He was human, therefore, like the rest of us, it follows that he had flaws and weaknesses. But from what I know of him, there is cause to believe that on many fronts the big kid grew into a hero of a man.