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Death of a lifelong friend

6/7/2021

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​My dearest friend for nearly sixty years, Leszek Leszczynski (usually just 'Les') died on 9th June 2021. The photo on the left was taken when he was just under 15. I, among others, was asked to write a short piece  to be read at his funeral at New Southgate Crematorium on 28 June and this is what I came up with.
         
  I was going to talk about Les’s kindness, generosity and fidelity as a friend but then I realised everyone knows that already, so I thought it might be more informative to go back to our early years.
  Although I’d seen him around, I first met Les properly when I was eleven and we were starting at Saint Aloysius College in Highgate. As Les and I both lived in Stoke Newington it was a long journey to school involving two buses. We were almost the only two at the school from Stoke Newington, apart from his brother Joe and my cousin John Harrington who coincidentally were also friends, though as they were in the sixth form they sat as far as possible from us on the bus.
  After a few weeks Les and I became quite chatty, and we discovered a mutual interest in the William stories, as in ‘Just William.’ We spent the bus journey telling each other about the ones we had read and this encouraged us to read more. Les brought to life William, his friends and the whole cast of eccentric adults. Our school was a harsh place in many ways, at least to me, and those journeys on the bus made it that much more bearable in that first year.
  We also soon discovered a love of History, both of London and our own area, and of course Les told me all about the History of Poland. This was less than twenty years after the war, so many of the events were still pretty recent. For the Poles especially, but also for many English people, the war was the major reference point. People spoke of Before the War, During the War, and After the War. Those of us who had missed out on the first two felt a little deprived, despite it being impressed on us how lucky we were.
  Sometimes at weekends or on bank holidays we would buy a Red Rover ticket to explore London and visit the sights and museums, followed by tea at his house or mine. In this way he became close to my family and I to his.  
 My family moved to Ipswich later on, but Les and I still saw each other fairly regularly and eventually I moved back to London to work. In all the time since Les has been there, a consistently faithful friend through both happy and sad times. As in those early school days, he helped make the unbearable bearable. As my own family became increasingly depleted he, Lykke and the girls were there, and the Christmases and other celebrations in more recent years have been a joy. 
  As for so many others, the last year and a half has involved enforced separation, made all the worse by his illness.  Yet eighteen months ago Les and I did manage to have one last outing in Central London, the sort we had when we were schoolboys: a trip to the Museum of London followed by an eat-in fish and chip shop near Brick Lane. I did not realise the significance, or that it might be the last time, but in retrospect I think he probably did.
  

Les was a keen photographer, a role he played at most gatherings and outings. The downside of this is that there are far fewer photographs of him than of everyone else. Above left is one I took of him with his mother, Henia (who died in  2020 aged 99), a few Christmas Eves ago. Les was fond of catching sneaky photographs, such as the one above right, taken in 2007 under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Left to right are me, his daughters Iza and Ewa, and wife Lykke. 

Both of Les's parents had found themselves prisoners of Stalin during the time of the Nazi-Soviet pact and were released in 1941 after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union and Stalin agreed with Churchill to let some of his Polish prisoners go (not that all of them made it out). Both his parents had lost their first spouse by the time they arrived in England just after World War II. 

Les's own website has been left up for the time being and contains a wealth of interesting photographs about his family, friends and much else. The name Londynski is a joke of sorts. Londyn is the Polish for London. 

http://leslondynski.weebly.com/
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I have just killed my best friend

15/10/2019

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​It is not often that we find a soulmate who is everything we could wish for, one whose existence helps us wake up every day thinking how lucky we are. Life seems that bit easier with a friend like that, and when we’ve found one we somehow know we will never find another. For a crusty old soul like me, who had given up all hope of ever finding another life companion let alone such a congenial one,the discovery is particularly wonderful.
   If you go to the blog posts of January and July 2018 and you will know exactly who I am talking about. They were written last year, but Cody has not disappointed me in any way since. Apart, that is, from one little flaw which at the moment I find difficult to forgive: he turned out not to be immortal.
 
The cancer in his spleen, or hemangiosarcoma (aka HSA) to give this one its scientific name, may have been there for a while, but it’s in the nature of things that dog cancer signs are spotted later rather than sooner. A dog cannot describe his or her pains and discomforts, and it takes a while for mere humans to realise that the series of seemingly inconsequential little symptoms - such as poorer appetite, less inclination to want to play, occasional lethargy, an increasingly frequent distant look  - may amount to something serious when put together. A partial consolation is that it would have made little difference to the outcome whenever it was discovered. HSA (which sounds oddly like a bank) is relentless and all-powerful. While we may not know when it all started, the time between its making itself known and the endgame was cruelly brief. This is starkly obvious in the two photos below. The first was taken in Clissold Park, Stoke Newington on Saturday 14 September, just before I began to suspect something was amiss. The second was taken at home on the morning of his last day on Wednesday 9th October, just twenty-five days later. 
It was on the morning of his last day (it had been a terrible night and early morning) that I knew I had to make the fateful decision. I had discussed this in the previous days with Chris, a friend who has been heavily involved with dogs and currently has three of his own. He was very much of the opinion that the deed should be done sooner rather than later. Thus I knew what his urgent advice would be when I rang him now, given that he thought that, with the misplaced sentiment of an amateur, I had delayed too long already. I had hoped that the anti-inflammatory pills Cody had been prescribed would allow a little respite. I rang the vet and the appointment was arranged for 5pm that afternoon.  I forced Cody to swallow one of the pills which might at least make him feel better and give him an appetite, and gave him plenty of water, as both his internal bleeding and the pills made him very thirsty. He did indeed revive a little as the day wore on and ate some chicken and ham. I had the idea to ring the front door bell to see what his reaction would be, and he jumped up when he heard the bell and barked as he ran to the front door. So there was life in him yet.
 
When Chris arrived Cody greeted him with enthusiasm, albeit in a weaker way than before. It was almost like old times as he sat with us while we drank a cup of tea and made a fuss of him. Chris suggested we walk to the vet, which was not far away, and as we set off Cody’s tail wagged at the prospect of a walk.  We sometimes used to go out into the fields and woods with Chris’s large dogs, and Cody probably assumed we would be meeting them again now.  And so he walked contentedly as we made our way to our destination. We stayed with him and he seemed happy, apart from the usual complaining yelp when the needle went in.  Then sleep came within two seconds.
 
While it was certainly a good end, even a happy one, I still wondered if he could have had a little longer if only I’d given the anti-inflammatories a little more time to work. On reflection I suspect that most people in my position have these kind of thoughts. As the days pass, and I can increasingly be sure that he would be dead by now anyway, I can concentrate on thinking about his last happy walk as he looked forward to meeting his friends again in the fields and woods of Suffolk.
 
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Mementoes of World War I and a more recent death.

11/11/2018

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The above postcard was sent to my mother when she was five or six years old. The family lived in Kildare, Ireland. She had two brothers fighting at the front, Willie and John. Cards like this were common, and the pictures were embroideries pasted onto the cardboard, most likely by French or Belgian women. This card depicts the flags of the allies in 1916, from left to right: Italy, The United Kingdom, Russia, France and Belgium. It must have been a tall order to sew such a tiny Imperial Russian eagle!
Willie McEvoy died at the Battle of the Somme not long after sending it.

Turning to the Williams side of the family, the photo on the left was taken in 1914, most likely in August. My grandfather, Ernest, was already in the army at the outbreak of World War I and this photo of his wife, Beatrice, and children (at that time) was probably taken at their home in Stoke Newington, North London. Most soldiers took similar photos of their family to take with them, or maybe this one was sent to him. My dad, Sydney (seated at the front),  would have been three and a half.

Fast-forward to this year and another death. My brother, Peter,  died at the end of September, having never recovered from a severe stroke in April. Peter was born on 1st August 1940, just after France had fallen and the Battle of Britain and the Blitz were just starting. Born prematurely, he spent much of the first weeks of his life in a shoe box in an air raid shelter. There's an odd symmetry in having occasion to remember Willie and Peter this year, as one died in battle and the other was born in the middle of one.  Peter's war adventures started early, as when he was a few weeks old and the bombing intensified, my mother was sent with him to Sunningdale, to the west of London, which was considered relatively safe. The convalescent home was bombed on their first day there. My mum was given a lift some of the way back to London, but the van driver refused to go beyond the western edge so she had to carry Peter the rest of the way.

Peter Joined the de la Salle Brothers when I was three so I can't  say I remember much of him in my early years. He was known there as Brother Gregory, which is why he was called Greg by many even after he left the order in 2000. As well as teaching (he did a long stint at St Joseph's College, Ipswich in the 1960s and early 70s, then at St Anselm's, Basildon) he founded the Lasallian World Projects, which involved taking older students to participate in school building projects in Third World countries. Below are a few pictures of him at various stages in his life.

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This blog has been hijacked! Dogs Rule!

6/7/2018

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PictureMandy and me at Ipswich Music Day
Hello, my name’s Cody. I’m a Standard Poodle and I don’t like to be mistaken for a ‘Labradoodle’ or any other doodle. I say that because when I’m taking Paul (my man, if that’s the right word) out for a walk, people sometimes get it wrong or seem surprised about how big I am. ‘He’s a Standard Poodle,’ he replies, ‘the original Poodle.’ I approve of that answer, which is probably just as well as it’s almost the only thing we do agree about. Bones of contention (pun intended) include how big din-din portions should be, what constitutes a long walk, and how long it’s acceptable to keep a dog waiting for both of the above.

Anyway, I’ve commandeered his computer (on which he spends too much time instead of playing with me) while he’s out. Of course, you probably think it’s totally far-fetched that a dog could write, and it’s true that we haven’t done it much until now as it’s almost impossible for us to hold a pen. Now we have keyboards it’s a different matter. I’ve spent a lot of time watching Paul and previous owners tapping away and I’ve picked up the basics and his passwords (and online banking details). When I told a friend of mine in the park that I’ve learned to use a computer, he said I could probably make a lot of money if the TV people found out, but I’m really still very slow so they’re unlikely to be impressed.

If you saw Paul’s ridiculously sentimental blog of January this year you will know I am a ‘rescue dog’, though that’s not a term I like much. We’ve done a few interesting things in the six months since I came here, though I’ll start with the most recent and the one that was the most totally new experience for me. On Sunday we went to Ipswich Music Day in Christchurch Park where we met up with Mandy and Terry, Paul’s friends whom I’ve got to know quite well now. I’ve never seen so many people and dogs before and I found it quite exciting. It was very crowded where we were sitting near the BBC Suffolk stage, though Paul took me for a walk around the park for a while. On the way back to the car he took me into The Greyhound pub ‘to see if it was dog-friendly’. He had a pint there, of course and they also supply water to dogs. I suspect we’ll be going there quite a lot now, at least during the summer.

I must say, I get the most fun out of annoying Paul. There’s a very muddy section in one of the ponds in the Dales and on a couple of occasions he was furious when I got in and my legs were covered in black mud more than half way up. Last week I tried it again and managed to get all of my legs and some of my underbelly covered. It took him over an hour to clean me up and I couldn’t stop laughing. The downside of this was that he took a photo of me before my bath and tells everyone how I looked like Shaun the Sheep. Poodles deserve more respect than that.

He does have his uses though. A few nights ago I had a nightmare while I was lying on the carpet (though I’m sure I wasn’t whimpering as he claimed) and he let me get on the settee next to him. Sometimes I like those quiet moments, so much so that I almost regret winding him up. Those feelings of guilt quickly pass.

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​Now I've started blogging I might start campaigning for dogs' rights. I didn't think I was much bothered but the other day I heard someone complaining about how dirty the public toilets were at a place she visited. This set me thinking. Some of the places I've gone to the toilet in are right dirty too, and when we walk along sometimes, and I begin to go into a garden, Paul pulls me back and says 'not there, that's someone's house.' I think there should be a law saying people should let dogs use their gardens as toilets. There should also be inspectors checking to see that the gardens are kept clean and tidy so that dogs have somewhere decent to pooh in. It seems reasonable enough.
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Sad death of Eric Bristow. Some family memories.

9/4/2018

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Many tributes have been made to Eric Bristow following his sudden and untimely death, mostly from those in the darts world and other pundits. My memories of him go back much further and have almost nothing to do with darts. 

To give some background, Eric's mother Pamela, to us always known as Pam, was my mother's niece. Her mother died when Pam was a small child and her father (Jo) was unable to look after her and her older sister (Jean) on a regular basis, so they spent much of their childhood living first with another aunt, Molly, and then with our family.

Although Pam remained close to my parents (to her, and later to Eric, Aunty Bridey and Uncle Syd) they didn't always approve of some of the company she kept, and Pam was very independent-minded, probably partly because she had lost her own mother at such a young age and she and another cousin, Pat, had been evacuated for several years during World War II to a rural area in northern England (though most of the McEvoy side of the family were unorthodox in one way or another). Later she started courting someone who  looked suspiciously like a Teddy boy in my parents eyes. George lived a few streets away with his parents in Milton Grove, and when they married and Eric was on the way they lived in a flat in his parents' house.

Pam, with Eric in tow, was a frequent visitor, not least after my mother had a severe stroke and Pam acted for a while as daily help. My sister Maureen also loved taking Eric out and our trips to Clissold Park and round and about in Stoke Newington almost invariably included Eric in his pushchair. Nowadays the idea of an eleven or twelve-year-old girl taking babies and toddlers out would be frowned upon, but in those days it seemed perfectly normal. 

Later on my parents were horrified that George seemed to take the adolescent Eric to the pub so often to play darts. 'He'll never make anything of himself that way' was their view, for education was important to them. As it turned out Eric was to receive a different kind of education, one that would lead to a life of more fulfilment and success than sixth form and university almost certainly ever would. Perhaps the lesson is that there is more than one way of nurturing talent, and maybe in his own way George saw that. Though of course, this only works when the talent being nurtured is very rare indeed.

We moved to Suffolk when Eric was eleven so we saw less of him and his parents, though Pam always kept us informed of his increasing success. When we met him occasionally as a teenager I was struck by his kindness, cheerfulness and confidence, in fact the confidence was something I envied. Later Eric moved to Stoke-on-Trent and Pam eventually moved to Macclesfield to be near him and his family. Pam and Eric had always been very close.

The last time I met Eric was about thirteen years ago when Pam was in hospital in Manchester, having been diagnosed with cancer. Maureen (a nun, 'Sister Petronia', since she was sixteen) and I went to see her. Eric, who had been in Las Vegas at a darts tournament, arrived while we were there, having only just found out that Pam's condition was terminal. The photo at the top was taken then. It's only just occurred to me that this was probably the last photo of Pam and Eric together, for she died a couple of weeks later. Eric was protective of his family, so intimate photos are rare, but perhaps that taboo can now partially be lifted. The photo on the right is one Eric gave me earlier in his darts career. 

 

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    Paul Williams's (McEvoy Williams) Blog.  General stuff about History, Literature, family and Ipswich.

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