I'm not going to pretend I knew Tony Wilson closely, but having the unpleasant honour of writing an obituary for him over the weekend, it struck me that he had been a presence – and an inspiration – for most of my life. Even people who barely knew Tony have vivid memories and stories of him. I guess the point of a blog is to share them.

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I spoke to my friend Amul on Saturday (whose life, too, would probably have gone a different way if not for Wilson), he reminded me of a conversation we both had, soon after graduating from Manchester University, sat in a bar at – of course – Tony’s In The City music convention. We were talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I’d said I wanted be a journalist, but I wanted to be able to do other things too, like release records, or open a nightclub, or have a website, or contribute in some abstract way to the city I owed so much to. “You want to be like Wilson, don’t you,” he said. I think that everyone who was ever young in Manchester, and cared about rock’n’roll (which was everybody), wanted to be like Wilson in some way.

Even to my generation, who arrived in Manchester a few, sickening months after the Hacienda closed, and only got New Order with ‘Regret’, long after Factory had closed he was still our Musical Mayor – with a hand in, or at least a strongly-worded opinion on, everything that happened. There felt like an unwritten code that this was his city – we just lived in it.

I first remember him, of course, from the television, presenting Granada Upfront, kind of a late-night Kilroy where he would whip a studio audiences complaints about council bin collection up into heroic socialist crusades, while co-host Lucy Meacock (like a younger, power-dressing Judy Finnegan) would try, and usually fail, to rein him in. In the world of regional television, he looked like a Bohemian hero.

When puberty struck, I discovered rock’n’roll, and clubbing, and Tony’s influence became even more profound. And then I got to Manchester, and In The City became our annual village fete. Tony the Mayor always loomed large. I remember the first time I spoke to him, hacking for the student paper and seeking out talking heads. He would always talk to anyone who asked, because, he said, he was a journalist himself, darling, and he always wanted to help.

A few years later I found myself (again, as most of us did) under his and Yvette’s employment, as Panel Co-ordinator at In The City. It was my job to cold-call music industry bigwigs and pester them into coming and sitting on our panels. Even though they knew they were in for an unholy grilling by a roomful of surly Mancs, it was amazing how many of them agreed. I was terrible at the job, but I got to work in offices still known as Factory Records. I remember vividly how Tony would flounce into the office, a few times a week. He would tell an enigmatic story about Shaun Ryder, or prophesise the digital future of music with his new music33 download service (it foundered because, yup, the music industry weren’t having any of it, and they let Apple runaway with the market shortly afterwards). Or he’d wonder aloud whether he’d offended John Lydon somehow, our keynote speaker that year, because he hadn’t heard from him in a few days. Or he’d use a word he knew none of us would have heard and tell us to look it up (we did – I got ‘Diaspora’ that way). Mainly he would rave on about music. I vividly remember him coming back from New York one day, mad with excitement about a new track he’d found that was going to take the world. Sure, we had to stifle our sniggers when he played ‘Because I Got High’ by Afroman, but for sure – it was number one four months later (though no, not through Factory).

Tony was a big man, ferociously intelligent and keenly aware of his own importance, but also kind, benevolent, with time for anyone. I never witnessed much ego. He used to say “most organisations have young people that are wannabes. At In The City we have gonnabes.” We’d taken it on ourselves to be involved in music in his beloved Manchester – so of course we were his business. Certainly, it mattered to me what he thought of me. Whatever he did think, I'll bet it was less after I moved to London.

I last saw him in April, in the surrealist of circumstances, backstage at the Coachella festival. He was over to introduce Happy Mondays. I’d been told he was on the mend, and though he'd clearly been ill, it didn't seem appropriate to say anything. So I just spluttered, "I'm going to be Bez!" because that was the latest hare-brained chapter in my love affair with the legacy - loading up on vodka red bull and dancing like a goon after the real Bez was denied a visa. "James from the Klaxons will fight you for that," he chuckled. I must have looked like a bit of a dick, and I could tell he thought so. It makes me smile that the last time I saw him involved me doing an impression of somebody, and something, that happened all because of him.

It’s no surprise that the Town Hall’s flag has been at half mast. What I didn’t quite understand, though, was quite how profound Tony’s influence was outside Manchester, who didn’t grow up with him as a constant presence. When we heard about his death in the office, it took about a minute for everyone to agree, overwhelmingly, that we should give our cover over to his memory. There was a tangible sadness that you don't get when a public figure dies. It still seems unbelievable that he’s gone. We will surely never know his selfless like again.