We recently received an email from one of the members of Camp Milk,a group of Download veterans who have been attending over the past years, who wanted to share Pabs’ story.
Pab’s mentality and strength throughout his own cancer journey is something that inspired our very own Amy with her battle. Pabs sadly passed away in December 2023 after fighting stage 4 throat cancer and his friends would like to share the following.
‘This isn’t my story. I want to talk to you about one of the best men I ever knew. Paul Norton, Pabs to his friends and he had so many friends. Pabs was the kind of guy you couldn’t not like, as evidenced by our trip to Download in 2023 where we first met Amy and the gang and Camp Milk was born. Ask us about that over a pint.
Pabs was diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer in 2020. He fought hard and at one point we thought he’d beaten it, but the insidious bastard that cancer is, it came back. He stayed positive and fought until the very end, determined to live his life on his terms right to the last minute.
That’s what prompted our Download trip. Myself and another pal had wanted to do Download for a couple of years, lockdown put paid to plans and we’d not quite got round to organising another trip. There’s always more time, you think. When Pabs decided he wanted to do his first music festival, we kicked it into gear and motored on down.
He was hurting, on some very strong pain meds at the time, but he soldiered on and partied with the best of them. I enjoyed every second of it. We wound up forming quite the group of found friends, friends that became family. Every year we return to Download and raise a glass to Pabs. Guinness for preference, that was his favourite.
I knew Pabs for over 30 years. He was a damn good man, a lifelong friend and a brother. He loved his family, he loved life and cancer took him far too young and he still went out with a joke and a dignity which I can only hope to have’
