FIRST Lemmy, then David Bowie. It seems like the passing of an era. I’d just about got used to the cultural music icons of my youth reforming to boost their pensions by doing another tour. But now it seems that old age and a life lived much to the full seems to have taken its toll.

They may be gone, but they will certainly not be forgotten. As one tribute at Lemmy’s memorial service said ‘Lemmy’s music and personality will last for ever’. The funeral was live streamed to fans around the world holding their own events.

Meanwhile, as I write this, tributes to David Bowie are pouring in. ‘He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life.

He will always be with us,” said one; “He gave us magic for a lifetime,” said another.

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,” claimed Shakespeare – but he was being ironic. Lemmy and David Bowie will live on through their music, through their influence of others and for the way their larger than life personalities touched so many.

But that’s true of all of us, isn’t it?

Sure, we may not be icons, and few of us will have left behind a legacy that inspired a generation of rock fans and musicians. But each of us will live on through the lives we touch and the people that we influence. Consumer consumption may be the thing that drives our economy, but, when we come to be remembered it won’t be for our purchase of solid oak furniture, the car that we drive or our ownership of the latest bit of Apple kit. It will be for the affect that we have had on others; our families, our children, our friends, our colleagues.

Our occupation of physical space will be long outlived by the emotional space that we have given to others. Lemmy and Bowie lived lives that most of us could only dream of. Our lives and influence may be a lot more modest – but they are no less real. Our tributes may not consume column inches but they will consume the thoughts of those we have touched.

In Wales they have gone a stage further to ensure that we can continue to do good beyond the grave; their citizens now have to opt out of donor transplants rather than opt in.

‘A giant step’ said one of the 6,856 people currently on the transplant waiting list, some of whom know they will die before a donor can be found.

Let’s hope our government has the courage to follow soon. Giving a stranger back their life – a tribute that any one of us should be proud of.