Saccharin sentiment is not for the real world and Kate had little time for it, polite though she (almost) always was when it was given. Under any show of tolerance, though, she was the truest and most authentic person, the most self-created, self-defining, self-directed woman of her own making I have ever known.

Let's not pretend. In her own mind, Kate didn’t. She would have a short, pithy – perhaps anglo-saxon – comment to make on all we are doing for her but would probably have kept it to herself because she put others’ feelings before her own, sometimes at extravagant personal expense.

So let’s think of Kate without whistles and or the bells poets say are only for the living.

But perhaps with a sequin or two. And, definitely, all the fairy lights we can find. She loved sparkle and would want us to have sparkles now too.

She’d want us to recognise that strong, indomitable woman, that amazing unique self, preferably as all that she was and not just the parts we found fit with our idea of what she might be, let alone “should” be.

She was a quietly, but radically, deeply and passionately rebellious person, who was herself before all, whatever the pressures she faced. Stuff convention. She would be herself no matter what you thought and no matter what control you might try to set on her. Some tried. They failed and were rightly, if privately, despised for it.

Kate would want us to remember her with a Sondheim song, and a really good quote. Buffy or Sondheim would do. She and I had a running joke between us that we would get a Douglas Adams quote into every presentation or event we did, whether anyone would notice or not. But “don’t panic”. It was “mostly harmless”.

Kate had too much humility, under her guise of wanting to be queen, to really know how far she succeeded whether in life or in work. She surpassed expectations and exceeded normal limits. That was normal for her. She had a knack for turning the most painful of personal adversity into a new success – often remarkable, often under-estimated or misunderstood at the time.

Kate may not have invented the field in which she spent her professional life, but she was perhaps responsible more than any other individual for creating the basis of what it has since become. That can't be said for many people.

It began from her incredible reaction to an impossible situation. When Kate broke her leg and was bed-bound, she found the Internet at a time when the world wide web was still young and most people struggled to conceive of what we take for granted now. That pain led to the first Masters’ level research into how relationships online can be so good that they’re actually therapeutic. That’s a woman who makes herself into something remarkable from a literal bed of pain, not just lie around and moan like most of us might do.

Whatever limitations seemed to be set on her, Kate would transcend. Not many people deserve the word “transcendent” – but my Kate did.

She created the first detailed trainings for therapists so as to teach them not just how to work online but to be good at it. In 2001, we wrote the first detailed ethical guidelines for how to do it safely.

Her proudest professional achievement was the creation, with her great friend and colleague-above-all-others DeeAnna Merz-Nagel, of the Online Therapy Institute. Their work, much imitated since, set the “gold standard” for online therapy. That isn’t Kate’s phrase – she wouldn’t have made such a claim. It's how professors and leaders of the therapy world described it. OTI was recently awarded the title “most innovative mental health training company” by the Scottish Enterprise Board 2 (count them – 2!) years running. When I say this work changed a profession, I am not exaggerating.

Kate was generous with her energy and time – personally and professionally alike. She would speak at events all over the world. There are too many examples. She liked to describe herself as “big in Brazil” after her TV appearance there. She ran workshops all over the UK, Europe and further afield too. The most common feedback she received from participants was "that was mind-blowing". The most commonly used word to describe her was "inspiring". She once presented in 4 (count them! – 4!) different kinds of reality (to a room of people, webcast on the Internet, via Twitter and Facebook and through an avatar of herself in Virtual Reality all at once). She loved that we worked with an organisation in Kosovo that ran under the slogan “Nuk Je Vet” (which is Albanian for “You Are Not Alone”), which was created as part of the response to the ravages of the genocidal inter-communal war there.

Although she never put herself forward for accolades, she did love them and deserved – I think – far more. She was made a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, their highest honour, and she held honorary positions with other groups, though she was dismissive, if only in private, of those flatterers who make such appointments because they seek borrowed glory. She should have been made a Dame, and was disappointed not to be.

When Kate was awarded her doctorate – for multiple innovations advancing the cutting edge of what counselling and therapy can be – she was herself surprised that it was described by the examiners as having gone “above and beyond” the standards expected of even that highest of all possible academic awards.

“Above and beyond” and the reminder that we are “not alone” is perhaps Kate’s most apt epitaph.

Kate wrote so many things with either DeeAnna or I, or all three of us together – half a shelf of textbooks, chapters, scientific papers, symposia... One book was translated into Finnish. I can’t even pronounce the title but we were very proud. With DeeAnna she founded and edited a whole professional journal which ran for years – but what to most people might in itself be a significant achievement is just part of a list of achievements for Kate.  Her last publication went to press just last month.

When she fought alcohol, she didn’t just win the battle. And she didn’t just fight it for herself. She helped found the 1st Step Recovery Café. It is still running in Linlithgow now. It has helped hundreds.

Just a year later, when she fought back from 2 – count them: 2! – strokes (which occurred, we shouldn’t forget, just after a live broadcast to Australia, for she was by then a genuine international star of her profession) she literally had to re-learn to walk. But even total left-side paralysis couldn’t stop her. When the nurses and OTs heard we had planned to go sailing the following summer, they all said – with doubt shining in their eyes – “oh, well, I suppose its good to have ambitious goals to aim for”. It was obvious they thought it insanely over-ambitious. Within 9 months Kate had become a qualified yachtswoman. We literally sailed through storms to do it. Regardless of conditions, she was ever the most competent crew.

When the pandemic struck and, after decades of scepticism and resistance, especially in the world of mental health care, everyone suddenly found the Internet was a way to connect with others, we created a special ultra-low cost training, available for free whenever needed, that provided vital skills to well over 14,000  practitioners in a matter of months. Even I have to remind myself that figure is not a typo. In effect, she gave away well over a million pounds worth of training - nearly two million. And never bitched about it!

There really are too many achievements to list. She worked on domestic violence, which she had known more about than anyone should, and on men’s health, and on problem gambling – even serving under the government’s Gambling Commission for a time. She was tickled to be received at Buckingham Palace. 

When I say she was a world class leader and shaper of her field, I do not exaggerate at all. But most of us don’t dream of succeeding at that kind of level and it can be hard to recognise what happens at such heights when the person we knew was “just” our Kate who was so unlikely to boast, so willing to give the focus to others, so personable, kind and funny.

When Kate and I got together, in 2013, we were determined to make “our thing” what we needed it to be, and we did. She moved to Scotland. We made a new family with my children, Catriona and Andrew. Kate never wanted to be “stepmother” - for all the obviously Grimm associations fairytales and Disney have loaded the word with. But for Catriona or Andrew, she wanted to be their Kate. She loved them deeply. And would want me to remind them of that now. It is an inter-generational tradition in my family that the ”step” bit of relationships matters not a jot. Those on the inside, where it counts, know what a relationship feels like to them. And Kate knew that what you feel on the inside is what matters. Her passionate heart beat quietly at times, but strongly, deeply and she would offer to burn down the house of anyone who hurt them!

When we moved to London to our boat, Kate found a whole new community. Where I saw just a sliver of hope, she saw the whole of the moon. She was – and I am – so very grateful that we fell in amongst such a community as we found at Benbow Moorings. Thank you to you all.

Kate faced her cancer with typically frank candour, though usually minimising it for others’ sakes. The treatments were gruelling. They literally took her voice. Yet she barely complained. She was stoic. She impressed even the hospice staff with her dignity and strength.

Even then, she set goals others might (and some did) think excessively ambitious. We got married. We snuck out. One night, in perhaps the most rock-n-roll lifestyle moment a hospice could see, she made it (wheelchair, nurse escort, a literal suitcase of drugs and all) to see Tenacious D play at the O2 arena getting back at one in the morning, exhausted but happy, like any rock star should. Thank you Julie for making that happen for our Kate. Even with cancer taking the very last of her strength, she rocked! Kate could even rock a hospice.

Her last goal was to make it to her birthday. And against all medical expectations and predictions for weeks beforehand, she did.

Kate was stronger yet more tender than she showed.

She was my centre. She was the glue that held life – and my heart – together.

She believed in others, sometimes more than in herself despite all she did and could do.

Her love of reality was as unique and rude as the world really is – and far more funny.

The world was better with Kate in it. It has a hole in it now, and we might as well try to fill a hole in the moon. The MP Tony Benn once wrote of my stepfather that we cannot fill the gap that is left, but we can decorate it with the flowers of memory. And that’s what we can do for Kate now.

Authentic like no other, Kate obliged all who asked if she could, and sometimes even if it cost her more than anyone guessed or should afford.

She fought demons like Buffy and became her Self through it.

She wouldn’t want our tears. She didn’t want them when she was alive and she has no use for them now. So we will share them with each other.