Richard

We moved into our present house in 1973, it was a new build and the street was still a building site with the footpaths only half finished as was our house; but we were being pressurized to move from the bungalow where we had spent the first seven years of our marriage by the people who were going to buy it.

So we moved and the builders finished the remaining work while we lived there, a few months later our Neighbours Kay and Allen moved next door and stayed for seven years before moving closer to their aging parents. Our next neighbors were Richard and Sue, Richard was a solicitor, and Sue was a teacher. Three children later they moved to a much larger house that was just over a mile away, the one thing that kept the two of us together was that every week we played very competitive five-a-side football until age dictated that we moved our physical activities from the football pitches to a succession of public houses where we talked a very sophisticated load of rubbish but how we enjoyed those evenings.

Our group had shrunk from around ten to just five as the Grim Reaper gradually reduced the two teams to one.

Richard was the person who corrected our age-related mistakes when we were so sure that our facts were correct and they were not. He was still working at the -age -of -seventy-four and had no intention of stopping. He rarely had a day off from his practice and played Crown bowls twice a week. One Friday he phoned to say he wasn’t feeling very well and would have to miss going out that night but would be back the following week.

He wasn’t, Sue told us he had cancer, I phoned him, he was struggling to speak and his condition deteriorated quickly; he died in just a few weeks and took with him all that knowledge.

A look far more convincing than a spoken reprimand, a sharp wit, a need to change the world into a better place, the love of West Bromwich Albion, the local football team. The love of his wife, three children, and eight grandchildren. I could fill a book with things that make me smile.

Our meetings at the Duke Of Cambridge aren’t quite the same, death takes away something you don’t want lose, without explaining why, without giving a reason.

I will miss Richard, he was a good friend.