We live, we die

In the early hours of Wednesday I noticed that I had a voicemail message had been left for me on Tuesday evening from a friend in Bradford, my home town that I moved away from in 1997. She sounded quite perky but asked that I contact her when I had a minute.

I smiled and thought she was ringing to tell me that her or her son was getting married or he had decided to become a vicar or some other surprising thing.

Unfortunately when I spoke to her yesterday morning she told me the sad news that one of our chums had died very, very suddenly of a brain haemhorrage at home last week. His wife, who is herself seriously ill, was with him. What made it even more shocking was that he was much younger than us - 48.

Roland and I hadn't seen him since we left Bradford in 1997 but kept in touch via other friends, and always had a good laugh when we remembered all we did with that particular set of friends. Ron was an extremely talented juggler (you can see him at the front of the photo of the three jugglers) and had also been to art school.

He was one of a group, including me and Roland, who organised the 11th European Juggling Convention held in Bradford in 1988 and, because he had been to art school, one of his jobs was to sort out a design to be printed on t-shirts for sale.

I really don't know why no-one checked the design before he went off and had a few hundred of them printed but when he proudly presented them to the rest of t'committee there was a stunned silence. One tactful person said they thought they would be popular with anyone who was on drugs. Funnily enough, we did manage to get rid of them .... eventually.

Of course it's inevitable that as we get older we hear of more and more of our peers dying. It doesn't make hearing the news any easier, though, whether the death was unexpected or whether it was at the end of a long illness.

Rol and I had a discussion last night about what we each felt was worst for those left behind: the aftermath of a sudden death or of an expected death. It was an interesting discussion which gave much food for thought.

It reminded me of what is and what isn't important, and put quite a lot of stuff into perspective for me.

Two other people who feature on this board are also dead, having each died a few years ago now. Both from cancer, both were very strong and inspirational women who I learned a lot from and who live on in my heart.

As will Ron. Particularly when I need to commission any design work.