'We were very different but very close ? good mates'

Like most younger siblings, Andy Bowler looked up to his big brother. He admired him, envied him, loved him; and now he mourns for him. Neil Bowler, 27, was a member of the Hong Kong Vandals rugby team who were drinking in the Sari Club last Saturday night when it was destroyed by a bomb.

"People say the worst thing is not knowing, but really I knew," Andy said. "The worst thing is not having it confirmed."

Andy lives in London with his partner, Jo, but spent most of last week at the family home in Worcester. When he spoke about his brother on Thursday he emphasised their differences, and said he believed that was why they got on.

Neil, he said, was big and strong with dark features. Andy is of medium build and has light-brown hair. They disagreed about everything. Neil went to Hong Kong – "I only made it to London."

Neil was an outstanding pupil at the independent King's School in Worcester, where the boys grew up with their younger sister. He excelled academically and became head of his house.

"It was all very sickening," Andy said. "He didn't need to be liked so it could take a long time to get to know him. But there was no reason not to like him, so once people knew him they kept in touch. He has so many friends all over the world. The phone has not stopped since Sunday. He made an impression on people. I think that people admired him for doing what he did."

After his A-levels Neil studied geography at Loughborough University, where he met his partner, Liz, a teacher.

Then, in 1997, at the age of 22, he headed off to Hong Kong with just £400, and quickly settled into the British expatriate community.

"He was just that kind of person," Andy said. "He could do that. He was able to leave and start again."

After working in a bar Neil landed a job in sales and marketing at the Financial Intelligence Agency.

"He obviously did well," Andy said. "He was offered a job with the Economist Group who shipped him to Singapore. Neil would stick at things. Where I might give up a job he would stick it out so that he could always say he'd done his best. We were very close, we were good mates."

Neil was not the sort of person to show how he felt, though. "When I visited him in Hong Kong he'd pretend not to care I was there. But his friends, whom I'd never met, knew all about me and who I was. Then, after about 10 minutes, we'd be messing about as if I'd never been away."

Neil was a strong character who "made the right decisions, and that inspired me. When our father died, years ago, he became the man of the house. At school he was a hard bloke. No one picked on me and if they did, God help them. The next day they'd come to school with a black eye."

Rugby was a big part of his life. "The expat rugby team was 90 per cent about socialising. He died in a nightclub with a beer in his hand at the end of a rugby tour, and I think that's the way he would have liked to go."

Andy first knew something was wrong when his mother phoned at 7am on Sunday. She had had a call from Liz, who was on a school trip in Shanghai. There had been an explosion at the club where Neil was known to be. "When I looked at the news I thought, 'No one's coming out of that alive'," Andy recalled. "I looked at the window and through a crack in the curtains saw a magpie fly on to a post. I'm not a superstitious person but it stays in my mind."

The family heard nothing for 24 hours. "The Foreign Office had no news of him. My mum phoned his mobile and thought that because the message was still working he might still be alive."

On Monday morning the rugby team coach identified his body. "My mum rang and said 'Neil's not alive any more'. I'll miss his sarcastic emails that you wouldn't send your worst enemy. I'll miss the fact that when there is trouble he won't be there. He was like a security blanket."