It seems to be an accepted truism that men don’t make and keep friends like women do. I can relate to that and given that I’m (a) a bit of an introvert, and (b) not inclined to retain contact with people it’s certainly true of me. Today I’ve got lots of people with whom I’m friendly and whose company I’m happy to keep but no-one with whom I’d say I have a deep friendship.
But it’s not completely true. There are some people from the past with whom I have retained a relationship over years, even decades and the two in the above photo exemplifiy this. The photo dates from 2011 but we’re all three still going strong. I’m the one in the middle, David Hall is on the left and David Norbury is on the right. We started in infants school together in 1952 so that makes for a 70 plus year friendship.
We went through primary and secondary school together but then went our separate ways. The other two became teachers and ended up in Watford and South Wales respectively. We must have maintained some contact over the years, such is the power of emails, but didn’t get back together until we met for lunch in 2011. All credit to David H for making that happen.
One school friend with whom I did maintain contact fairly continuously was John Rickards whom I met at Hawarden Grammar School in 1958 or soon thereafter. We stayed in touch and although we were following different careers, John also became a teacher, we enjoyed a couple of holidays together before we attended each other’s weddings. Thereafter our families went on holiday together. Sadly John died of cancer in 2014. I took this photo on 2004.
There are other names I recall from my school days of course but I won’t name them because then I’ll be worried about missing people out.
I’ve carried two friendships through from college.
I met Ed Libbey very early in my first year. We both did Natural Sciences majoring in chemistry so that meant a lot of lecture and lab time together and after graduation when we both embarked on PhdDs we shared a house and then later when we were both working in London we shared a flat. We travelled but stayed in touch by email with occaisional meet-ups for a meal. Our last lunch together was in March last year when I took this photo.
Mike Moles was a third member of our household in Cambridge but he’s sadly died.
By contrast Peter Doyle did engineering so we did not share scholastic time and I suspect that I didn’t get to know him until my second year. However our contacts since graduation have been deeper. Peter visited us when we lived in Switzerland and we’ve stayed at each other’s houses several times in recent years. Our last meeting was in 2022. This photo dates from 2017.
Both Ed and Peter came to my wedding in the UK (as did John above) and I remember the three of us met for dinner in London in 1983 or thereabouts. Nick Thompson was a fourth at that dinner but I have no idea what became of him. The four of us co-hosted a party in our final undergranduate year.
There’s a theme here which is about to be broken. These friendships were formed before I got married and that was in 1978 when I was living in Hong Kong. Before that I spent two years in Jakarta, Indonesia and enjoyed a life of hard work, sport and social activity. Two of my closest friends at that time were Phil Judd (left above), who was Best Man at my wedding, and John Finigan, at whose wedding I was Best Man.
Phil moved to Japan where we met in the early 90s but then it seems he moved back, he was a Kiwi, to New Zealand where he ran a cycle import business. That’s a trail that’s gone cold and it looks like he’s died.
John was a banker and moved onwards and upwards but we lost contact in the mid 80s. I remember him being at the National Bank of Kuwait but later he became involved with Golomt Bank in Mongolia in 2012. That’s another trail that’s gone cold. I captained a football team in Jakarta, the Masters (!), and he was one of our stars.
There was a fourth member of our group in Jakarta, Chuck Adams who worked for Chase Manhattan. I reestablished contact with Chuck, I think he’s more of a Charles now, about 10 years ago. He lives in San Fransico and we Skype regularly if not frequently.
And that’s it. Marriage and a family, plus fairly demanding jobs mean that I’ve got nobody to add to the list. As I say at the top: I’m not short of people to meet but there’s no-one who’s going to challenge any of the above for inclusion in this list.
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