“I want to be here for David.” Jeanette Ervine was speaking about her late husband and former PUP leader David Ervine before attending Saturday’s news event in the east Belfast Mission.

“It’s an historic day and an important piece in the jigsaw,” Jeanette said.

“I know David was working towards this day — and getting people to where they are now.”

On Saturday PUP leader Dawn Purvis said: “He thought about the peace process all the time, how to manage it, how to keep it on track, how to help guide people and advise people, while all the time having a vision of Northern Ireland at peace with itself.”

Then she read some unpublished work, written by David Ervine a few months before he died.

“The war is over, given that is so manifestly the case then there are consequences that follow. How does one sustain an army (meaning the UVF) and justify that army’s existence against a backdrop where evermore the populace feel less dependent upon the services of that army?

“The enemy is not now to be feared. The consequences of this is decommissioning and the dissolution of paramilitary structures.

“It is time to move on, to speed the day when we come of age as a people.”

This is what his wife Jeanette means about him “working towards this day” — that day that finally arrived on Saturday.

“He should be here,” she said.