You know, its a funny old internet. Things tend to link to strange things just when you least expect them to.<\/p>\n
This last update I offered up a test thingy for a podcast – more a Musing on wheels, to be honest. This in turn led to young Conrad listening to it and making a comment about it on his blog thingy (and alerting the Crawley Observer to the fact – that must have non-plussed Hobbit, lol). I reply to his post and he sends me an e mail which lets me know whats been going on at home – Jersey.<\/p>\n
And it isn’t good news.<\/p>\n
Debbie Letchford I knew from my schooldays. Her family were friends of my mate, Simon Dodkin’s family and they had moved over to the island from the mainland. We naturally, made her, and hopefully them all, welcome. We were all part of the same ‘mob’, lol. Myself, Debs, Simon, Sean Marshman (yes, thats right…please insert your Full Circle joke now), Bridget, James Dickenson…Debs and Simon even went out together for a while. Heady days indeed. Early to mid-eighties. Debs was always very kind, very happy – a gentle soul with a spark that never dimmed, no matter what. She always had that ‘motherly’ thing for me – karen could probably explain it better, lol – the always wanting to make sure I’m ok. After I’d split up with my first proper girlfriend, it was Debs who was there to pick up the pieces. After I moved to England we kept in touch, admitadly sporadically. I hadn’t heard from her for a couple of years.<\/p>\n
She was killed over a year ago when a police car on an emergancy call ploughed into her car. Her husband of just two months was seriously injured. The police driver was cleared of any wrong doing (I checked with my step-father on this one….pays to have contacts in Jersey, and Ill keep quiet about my thoughts on his ‘report’ on the incident – suffice to say, it took a lot for me to go to him and ask).<\/p>\n
Gavin Booth I sort of knew at school. I can’t remember how we actually got to know each other properly – it might have been we both looked for Doctor Who books at the same shop and the shopkeeper (who didn’t appear as if by magic, but was still a good sort) possibly put us in touch? I dunno. Anyway, Gavin was not a well person. He had things wrong with him that even the doctor’s couldn’t explain. I’m pretty sure they must have named at least one thing after him, LOL. However, he weathered it and weathered it well. Oh, he could be a bit short tempered at times and certainly had little time for fools. But both he and his mother, Andree, were very, very kind to me, going so far as to give me a moped! Gavin ended up living twice as long as was expected so every extra day was a blessing. I wish he’d have been able to see the new series of Doctor Who. He had a great imagination and loved the show very much (even tracking me down, when we had lost contact, through Virgin Books and young Cornell.). It was thanks to Gavin that I ended up treading the boards – his mother needed an ‘amiable idiot’ to play Bob Acres in Sherriden’s ‘The Rivals’ and Gavin, quick as you like said ‘oh, ask Tony.’! It was he who also introduced me to the Goon Show.
\nBoth Debbie and Gavin were wonderful friends whom I shall never forget. Yes, I do have to get over the shock of reading Conrad’s email – and sorry, Conrad mate…that can’t have been fun realising you were the one to break the news to me – but I shall always remember both of them at their very best…Debs happy and caring, always looking out for me emotionally and Gavin, giving me a ‘look’ as if to say ‘quit your jibber jabber – idiot child!’ LOL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You know, its a funny old internet. Things tend to link to strange things just when you least expect them to. This last update I offered up a test thingy for a podcast – more a Musing on wheels, to be honest. This in turn led to young Conrad listening to it and making a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.staggeringstories.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.staggeringstories.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.staggeringstories.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.staggeringstories.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.staggeringstories.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.staggeringstories.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.staggeringstories.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.staggeringstories.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.staggeringstories.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}