There's a lesson here...

[Soop Dogg]

Between 1984 and 1987 I was in the RAF. I served an apprenticeship for those 3 years and the other lads on the course kind of became my family. For me this was probably more true than for others as I didn't grow up on the UK mainland and had left my family to 'join up'. At weekends, when I couldn't go home, I would sometimes stay at a mates house, and we'd go out clubbing Saturday nights and generally having a laugh.

 

Anyway, I ended up leaving in '87. My best mate, Andy Collins kept in touch for a while, but with various moves, we lost touch with each other. One day while in the Nottingham area in about 1994, I called into his parents house to see if I could contact him. As it turned out, he was living in Saudi, working for an electronics company. He was coming home later that week to visit. I went up the next week to meet him and we had a chat about old times, and had a beer or two. Over the next couple of years, he moved on and we lost contact again. Since 2000 ish I have tried to track him down again, to meet him again and to try to organise a reunion of all the lads.

 

I hadn't had any joy until Wednesday this week when I finally found his name on Friends Reunited. (I had checked here before but without any joy) So there I was reading about how he had learned to dive whilst living in Saudi and had then moved to the Cayman Islands to work as a diving instructor when the text changed direction. It stated that it was being written by his sister as he had gone on a dive in December 2001 with a group of novice divers. He had entered the water ahead of them and simply disappeared never to be seen again.

 

That's it. He's been gone for 3 years now, leaving his wife of only 2 years. And here I have been thinking I'll get in touch via his parents the next time I'm passing that way. 3 years and I never knew. Gutted.

 

The message is just to never put off until tomorrow, contacting that friend you haven't spoken to for ages. Keep trying to contact them. You never know when it's too late.

 

Brian.

[nick_karkie]

Thats a good point, my best childhood friend Alex went travelling 3 years ago and 10 months into his 11 month trip round Australia and Asia he disappeared in Nepal after being mugged and handing in his passport at a travel agents so he could come back and pay for a flight, but he never returned to pick up his passport and disappeared along a trail leading to Mt. Everest. I wish we could know if he is still alive, the unknown is far worse than knowing they are dead, its hard without closure and his oarents are distraught constantly wondering why he never turned up at the airport.