Thank you for being a friend

by Rick Johansen

After all my scathing criticism of Facebook (EclecticBlue.org passim), today I now see the good in it, following the death of my oldest and best friend Nick Lane. I could almost touch the love when I posted the sad news on Facebook. We were friends from childhood, enjoying music together, as well as beer, travel and all the other things friends do together, including talking absolute bollocks. My life is a darker place without him.

As The Clash wrote, “we met when we were in school”. Briz, or Brislington School in Bristol, as it happened. He introduced me to Bristol Rovers after I had an early dalliance with the other lot, we discovered Steely Dan, our all time favourite band, I was complicated, he was straightforward, always knew where you stood. Somehow it worked.

49 years ago, we went to Canada on a once in a lifetime adventure, travelling from Heathrow to St John in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Montreal, Toronto and the Niagara Falls. I liked Canada, he loved it and dreamed of moving there.

We both worked for the DHSS, the DSS, the Benefits Agency and then the DWP, at different offices but we always stayed in touch. He was awarded an MBE by The Queen at Buckingham Palace for public service and charity work (therein likes a story, perhaps for another day). He took me as his guest and we sat in front of the actor Christopher Lee.

Later in life, he found love, left the DWP and the UK to live in Montreal. He married and took his wife, his mother in law and his two stepchildren to live in Moncton, New Brunswick where he died on Monday night. He had not suffered the best of health in recent years but it still came as a shock. My thoughts today are for his mother, who still lives in Brislington and his surviving brother Andrew who lives in South Wales and his Canadian family. She has now lost three of her four sons. His stepdaughter told me last night that they saw Nick as their father and are today bereft.

As per his wishes, there will be no viewing (“I don’t want people staring at me”), no formal funeral; just a simple cremation.

Since he moved to Canada – and I have no real idea when that was – I knew I would probably never see him again. There was a time in recent years when he considered having one final trip to Europe, particularly Nice in France, a place he loved, and I was to fly there to meet him. It never happened and I never expected it to, if I am being honest, but sometimes it’s good to dream.

Me? I’m a little shocked, my head is a little heavy but I’ll be fine. I’ll miss him, of course, but then I’ve already been missing him for years.

But, speaking of dreams.  Nick had a dream, a dream of moving to and living in Canada and his dream came true. That his dream could not last a little longer makes me sad but his was a life well lived. An honest, decent man with staunch principles, I was privileged to be his friend.

Stay free, old pal.

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