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Sad news

Chas

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Not Cruiser related so please excuse me. I had some bad news today, Bill Fisher known to his friends as Billyfish (an old workmate of mine) has died out in Vietnam from a heart attack, he was the best mate I ever had.
This has hit me so hard, I just can't take in he has gone. He was still quite a young man, I can't remember exactly how old but much younger than me anyway.
We went through a lot together, many years working together of course, and travelling, we even went mining for opals out in Oz.
This is him in his paintballing club T Shirt.
 

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Its all part of living Chas

I'm not yet 50 but it seems every time i go home another character from my personal history left the stage never to return . Well done for speaking about it , its a process we all have to go through and the memories that hurt now will in time bring a smile to your face , be glad you knew him and for the times you shared .
 
Sorry for your loss Chas.

I was going to say something along the lines of what Shayne said - just that he said it first and much better than I could.
 
Shayne nailed it.....
The one thing I have learned is to value friends and time spent with friends even more so ......... you never know when that quick brew and a chat will be the last.
Share your feelings with friends , talk about him and remember the good and funny times .
 
One of my fondest memories me and my best mate must have been about 12 years old carrying a car roof up the quarry because we were going sailing on it , i can't remember what we were talking about or maybe we were just laughing because with our hands full the cigarettes in our mouths were blinding us with smoke .

He was about an hour past his 21st birthday when he died in a motorbike crash , a year to the week since we made headlines in all the local newspapers "youth's escape death and walk home"

So many memories i will never know why that one specific moment when we were 12 years old remains vivid and comes to mind at least weekly nearly 27 years later but it still makes me laugh .
 
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A lovely tale, it's strange how some memories stay in your mind for no particular reason. A certain memory about me and Bill always comes to mind of when we were in Bangkok, we were walking along a road when towards us came this little beauty in a low cut lemon coloured dress, I said to Bill 'Did you see the tits on that?' he said keep walking, she needs a shave.
 
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Just over 2 years ago a very good mate died in the most unexpected way....

Saxon was a brilliant Tree surgeon , explorer , adventurer and extreme sports fanatic .
He cycled across the Gobi desert , the length of the great divide and around Mongolia to name a few of his trips on his Fat Bike with a pack raft , in the winter he went ice climbing or Skiing .

He lived in a barn ... no mains plumbing and only a small woodburner for heating.
As a tree surgeon he would refuse to cut down a tree if it didn't need to be cut down and could be saved .

We and his family all thought we would end up going to some remote place to try and find out what happed to him when he failed to return from an adventure .
The hardest thing to come to terms with is he was killed by a falling dead tree as he and his girlfriend drove along a road in Runnymead one sunny day with not a whisper of breeze.... the 3 others in the car were untouched ....he died instantly .....

He would have hated to have got old and been unable to go on adventures ....we often spoke about not wanting to fade away but he was just 50 and we were planning his next trip ( a bike ride across the ice in Siberia ) ..... the fact he died because someone failed to heed the advice of another professional tree surgeon and left a tree in an unstable condition

He should never have been on that road as the plans they had were changed at the last minute by circumstance and then his insistence they go to that particular pub makes you wonder if we all have a destiny that is unavoidable.....

The only comfort for his family was he didn't just disappear in some remote part of the world .

We are surrounded by memories of him..... Benches he made out of trees we had to take down , chainsaw carvings around the garden ...

I can now not see the keyboard clearly for some reason......

They may be gone but will live on in fond and funny memories ..........
 
Well isn't life strange. I had no intention on contributing to this (sad) thread but then last night at 19.00 the phone rang. Wife's cousin, 50, veggie, non drinker, non smoker, who lives in the same village as us was out for a run and dropped stone dead outside the primary school - where she works. Massive heart attack. His sister, who is a nurse was driving past and saw the ambulance crew. She parked up to go and see if she could help only to find it was her brother. His wife, concerned that he'd not come back from his run, went to look for him and came across the paramedics working on him on the pavement.

I mean what can you say? It happens every minute of every day across the world. But when it's this close to home, it makes you really think.
 
How awful to come across your loved ones in that way, They have my sincere sympathies.
 
This is almost a carbon copy of what happened someone in the next street several years back. The husband went out for his usual Sunday evening run and was gone much longer than usual. His wife, getting quite concerned, went out to see if there was any sign of him, expecting him to be stood talking to someone, and found him dead on the driveway. It was a quiet cul-de-sac and not very well lit which could explain why he wasn't found sooner. We also learned a few days ago that a neighbour of over 30 years a few doors away has died from Covid, aged 64 fit and healthy. As funeral attendance is still limited the family is asking neighbours to line the street next Monday as a send off.
 
I don't own a single photo but twice i've seen portrait paintings of departed friends and both times i felt it somehow captured more .
 
Sorry to hear of the loss of your good friend Chas, especially as it’s hit you so hard.

One of the downsides of getting older is seeing those around you fall away.

2020 has gone down in history for the whole world I think as being a bum year because of COVID, but it’s odd that we lost 4 members of our joint families in 2020, none of whom succumbed to the disease.

First to go was my wife’s father in January, 99 years old tower of a man, fighting fit till the very end, but age simply withered him away to next to nothing in a matter of a few heartbreaking months.
Next was my mum’s brother, my uncle who was the very best of the bunch so to speak, 99 years old, WWII veteran and the best sense of humor I’ve ever come across.
Then it was my wife’s uncle who passed away suddenly at 72 years of age, a shock to all.
And the last one was my dear mum at 97 years, who’d spent the last 5 years in an old folks home with dementia, no memory of ever being married for 50 years, or having us 3 kids. That‘s just a devastating situation to cope with knowing you’re own mum doesn’t even know you.

As Shayne said, it’s part of life, and we all know it’s coming to each of us including our nearest and dearest, but the truth is, you can never be prepared for when it actually happens.

So that was a major part of our 2020.... as well as this COVID....

My sister bravely fought cancer for 20+ years and passed away at 67 (my age now) in 2015. I was ready for it. She had the bad news that it had become untreatable at the end of that September, we had a hastily organized family reunion in West Wales in early October (a sort of farewell if you can imagine such a thing), she attended her second daughters - brought forward - wedding at the end of October, and she died on 5th November ...

Oh I was ready for it all right, well prepared, but after getting the news I simply fell apart. Nothing has affected me like that before or since. I’ve always known I was fond of her, but suddenly I realised quite how close we really were. Thanks to Shayne he helped me through that with some worldly wise words...

I don’t have many family photos at all, somehow being divorced and moving house a few times in different parts of the UK and ending up starting a new and wonderful life here in Romania, these things get lost, left behind somewhere or otherwise missing, but last week I came across a photo of my sister (and my parents and older brother) that I took in 1967 when I was 17.... and I don’t remember ever seeing it since I took it 43 years ago. It brought back everything, almost my whole life somehow, just in one brief multi-sentimental moment. My old Gran used to say, “we’re only on loan” and how very true that is....

Chas, you have good memories, hold on to them and cherish them all. I feel for you mate.

Sorry for my rambling folks, all these posts must have triggered something...

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You ramble away Clive, it is really encouraging to know others feel as you do, very comforting words
I have on the wall above my computer two pictures, on is of my mother and her sister and their mother my gran.
During the war when my mother was working in a factory working on torpedos for the war effort her younger sister, just a teenager then, used to care for me, a babe in arms then, they say at those young ages you bond with the person caring for you so my aunt was like a second mother to me we were always very close throughout our lives.
When she died it was as bad as my own mother dying, she was the last of my older relations, I firmly remember our conversations of my early years. When they go it's like losing touch with your past
The other picture above the PC is one taken by Billyfish of me and Bill's father sitting by a camp fire at Lightning Ridge where we mined for opals. I think I must put one of Bill up beside it.
 
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