It has been a long time, so we do not know how life has treated you, but we hope you are well and enjoying the prime of life. When we heard about what was planned for you it brought back a flood of memories. Usually one can think of something scandalous or find an embarrassing photo, but you will be relieved to hear that despite racking our brains and searching the loft – nothing, just warm memories of growing up in Aldersbrook.
Teenage life revolved around St Gabriel’s youth club, our small and rather unconventional senior scouts (most troops had a Skip, we had a Colonel), and our corner table at the Bowling Club dances. It was a bit like a village in the middle of East London surrounded by a green belt of Wanstead Park, Wanstead Flats, and the allotments where the scout field was.
Then came jobs, houses, and mortgages. Remember you installed central heating in our house in return for home cooked meals. I think you thought it would be a quick job, but our house had been a rural police station and was built to last a thousand years, so progress was slow. And then we got involved in building your house at the Rodings – no skills of course but hopefully good tea and cake and certainly admiration for what you were doing.
I remember being driven around by you to take photographs of industrial heating systems for a trade exhibition and then celebrating at a posh French restaurant – quite a change from the Manor Park Chinese and Berni Inns of the time. We also remember a camping holiday in Wales: canoeing and mackerel fishing and cooking our catch fresh from the sea stands out in our memories. Oh and we had shares in a sailing dinging although I never mastered that skill and even you, I seem to remember then got yourself a power boat.
No doubt other things will come to mind but for now keep safe, keep positive and keep negative.
