Sarah J Edwards recalls her 17-year friendship with Beastie Boy Adam Yauch.

Adam Yauch was a very gentle, kind-spirited and big-hearted human being, and he was one of my dearest friends. He encouraged and supported my publishing and photography work and together we concocted countless jokes that I recite to this day. Our friendship journeyed through my learning curve 20s, which included a two-and-a-half-year pit stop on Beastie Boys' publicity team, to my more relaxed 30s, when Adam was always a laidback and dependable influence. He opened my mind to everything from dining out to understanding the futility of materialism; he had started to study Buddhism early in our friendship and told me wonderful stories of local traditions he'd learned from his travels.

We met in the summer of 1995, in a packed VIP field at Reading festival, his attention initially caught by my twin Sally's fine wolf-whistling skills. On that day, Sally, Adam, Mike Diamond and I bonded over stories of indie publishing – Sally and I had just advanced our magazine, Blag, from fanzine to glossy, while Adam, along with fellow Beastie Boys Adam Horovitz and Mike Diamond, was producing cult magazine Grand Royal. The following evening, Adam invited us to join them at a restaurant. Little did we expect a night of dessert sharing, arcade motorbike racing, watching Babe and leaving a club because it was too loud.

A few days later, the home phone rang and a gruff cockney voice shouted down the line: it was Adam doing his British punk alter-ego Johnny Rocket. We would often refer to him under this name and continued to greet each other with "Oi" for 17 years.

Adam would frequently catch you by surprise, blurting out the funniest things followed by his trademark cheeky fixed grin, as if to say: "Yes, I knew that was a good one. I knew it would make you laugh." His jokes would regularly incorporate impressive Scottish, northern and German accents.

We had an unwritten rule to "always meet up when on the same turf", usually involving a juice or Japanese spot, or cookouts and movie nights. We'd always take a walk in our respective cities together – mine London, his New York – and talk about the serious and lighter sides of life, each time guaranteed the creation of a new joke or catchphrase.

Adam Yauch: cherished, unforgettable.

Read the Guardian obituary here