We were students once and young

Its not been the greatest of weeks.  You see last Friday Mrs E and I had to go the funeral of our friend Ron.  we expected to have to do this just not so soon.  We were told he wasn't well before Christmas but Ron told us it was a stubborn infection and was 'fixable'.  He was in hospital at that point but on strong antibiotics and hoping to be home in a few days.  He was allowed to have Christmas at home and then on New Year's Eve he was told he had liver cancer and only weeks to live.  He died on 28 January.  It has devastated both myself and Mrs E.

I met first Ron on the first day of lectures on our first term at University, we were both heading for the same seats at the back.  He was tall by the standards of the early 1970's but not skinny with it and that made him stand out.  That and his red and white football scarf.  Where I came from that meant either Liverpool or Manchester Utd.  For Ron it meant Middlesbrough, 'the Boro' as he always called them.  As we both supported unfashionable football clubs it gave us something in common.  Like me he was also the first person in his family to go into higher education and an only child so neither of us had any idea how this university thing worked.  We liked some of the same music and he also had a motorcycle and I desperately wanted one.  That was enough to start a friendship that lasted for the next 45 years.  When I met Mrs E at the end of the first term at Uni Ron immediately became her friend too.

He was one of those people who took being your friend very seriously, being a friend had duties and obligations as well as benefits as far as Ron was concerned.  So when I did get a motorcycle of my own it was Ron who taught me the basics.  In true Ron style he told me that there were three important things to master.  First getting the bike moving, second being able to stop and lastly not falling off while doing the first two.  Ron's own bike was like Ron himself, it wasn't overly flashy, but it had a charm all of it's own.  It was a Honda CD175, solid, dependable and not prone to letting you down just like Ron himself.  Later Ron acquired a car a bright blue Hillman Imp, to be honest the only way it was an improvement over the bike was that it had a roof and could take more than one additional passenger.   Ron became a taxi service for all of his friends running us from campus to Halls or on trips out.  He would take me and Mrs E , up to the Boro where we would take in a game and stay over at his parents.  A night on the beer would inevitably follow especially if the Boro had won. It was on those trips up to the Boro crossing the North Yorkshire Moors that Ron once pointed out of the car window to tell us 'there is a stunning view over there, of course you can't see it as it's dark...and foggy'!  That was Ron, not one to let inconvenient details stop him pointing out the highlights of life.

When Mrs E and I married at the end of our second year Ron was my best man.  Just before we walked into the church he took me aside and pointed out that we could be at the Boro in time for kick off if I was having second thoughts, all I had to do was say, BUT once I stepped into that church he would break my legs rather than have me let Mrs E down! 

In our third year Ron moved out to a rented flat near the University and Mrs E and I moved to a shared rented house a little further out of the city.  We would still visit each other a couple of times a week and it became clear that while Ron took many things seriously washing cups wasn't on the list.  I don't think he owned a cup that wasn't stained brown from tea.  It didn't matter though you went to see Ron not worry about crockery.

When our first baby was born in 1977 Ron was Godfather.  He took that role seriously too even when our daughter used to have to be coaxed out from behind the settee because 'uncle wrong was scary'.  He was anything but, although to a three year old he must have looked huge.

As the years went by we saw each other less often, work, hobbies children all took up our time.  Ron was teaching in South Yorkshire and we were living and working in North Yorkshire but we would still see each other three or four times a year.  It didn't matter though because every time we did visit it was as if no time had passed at all.  As we got older  visits became less frequent but Christmas cards came from Ron and his wife with details of what had been happening not just to Ron but all of our contemporaries from Uni.  Ron was doing Facebook updates before Facebook existed.  We then moved away for a few years and hardly saw him at all.  Ron divorced, remarried and in his early 40's had a son, who as expected he doted on.  After all parenthood was to be taken seriously and done right, it was the only way Ron knew how to do things.  When we moved back to the North visits with Ron and his family started up again just as if they had never stopped, driven mainly by Ron, I did mention that he took being a friend seriously didn't I.  When Mrs E was caring for her elderly parents in their final years Ron would telephone or pop in to make sure she was OK if I was working away from home.  When a friend from our University days was terminally ill he would drive down to South Wales to see her and and when I was recovering from surgery last year he came to visit me, this from a man who hated talking about illness.

He was always there sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the back, but always there.  Then he died.  After 45 years of being there.  He was my friend and I'm going to miss him more than I can easily say.