annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill My friend Bill died today. I’m sure I’ve written about him before, without naming him. I’ve known him since the late 70s, when I worked in the pub and he drank. He was an alcoholic at that point, for many years and wasn’t in any way a friend then. He was just one of the people in the pub that everyone knew and many were fond of. He had a quite endearing habit of handing you all his drugs and money just before he passed out, usually all in one seamless movement, hand out, stuff given away as he slid to the floor. A few years later he had a habit of knocking on the door quite late in the evening then when you opened it he’d pass out in your hallway, an immovable object He did this in two places I lived and on both occasions the door had to be left open all night as there was no waking him or moving him. But that was then. I got to know him after he’d sobered up , rented a room in the same house as my sister and to my surprise turned out to be an excellent bloke, a diamond geezer, in his words. He went to uni as a mature student, got a first in Urban Studies and for a few years volunteered in various charities till he could build up some decent references and get a job in housing, regeneration, that kind of thing. He was brilliant at this – honest and open, speaking in his usual rough manner, taking no bullshit from any of the smooth operators wanting to push projects towards their mates. He’d been poor, proper poor, as a child and he knew what that meant and what those children and families needed and did his best to make sure their needs were taken into account when local policies were implemented. Gradually I got to know him better – I can’t really remember how, but we were in each other’s lives for many years. He started to have health problems long, long ago – he was given six months to live in 2007, cancer, the first of many, but he saw them all off. Hep C, cured. Liver transplant, sorted. On and on, loads of it. He kept getting terminal diagnoses and living on – it seemed he would indeed live for ever. He had a daughter and made a home and a life with her mother, created amazing gardens, retired, gradually did lose health and joined the mental health day centre I went to. They all adored him there – plain speaking, lots of swearing, lots and lots of kindness and no small artistic talent. When the pandemic hit he joined us on zoom and has been coming to those sessions right up till a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know how to tell them, his zoom mates. We were talking last week about getting a card together, writing things in it for his wife to read to him, but we didn’t know he wasn’t going to make it. I did actually say last week that he’s been supposedly dying for the last fifteen years of my friendship with him at least, and I kind of forget that he’s really ill and one day will actually go. And now he has. Lovely Bill. He loved Sammie and was a great help to her, with applications and references. I hope they’ve found each other. I hope that’s how it works. 12:03 a.m. - 04.03.24 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||