Michael
Duviau
Simon
(Woody) and I have been close friends for the past 32 years, I first meet Simon
at the young age of 10, we both were the new boys at St Thomas school in Hildenborugh,
Kent. After a short time we found that
we had a lot in common, and the long and good friendship began.
We both had
a slight problem with reading and this lead to a bumpy ride with some of the
older seniors. But we would help each other out with the many battles, Simon
may have been small in stature but he was like a rough jack Russell “keep going
until they fall”. Simon and I started to travel to school by train, and Simon
made friends with quite a few of the Tonbridge sixth form girls and the journey
home was interesting! After St Thomas’s changed its name to Foxbush School , we went to Linden Park Tutors a college in Tunbridge Wells at the age of 15 to get our
“O” Levels.
We would
help Simon’s brother Mark on a Friday night at the Plough Pub where he did the
Black Cat Disco’s, we and sometimes Alan, Nick were to be found in the car
park, but later we would slip in the back door into the disco, this is where
Simon first found his dancing feet or legs or body. After it was all put away
in the back of Mark’s ACS van, we would go to the Cave night spot in Tonbridge,
and this was only Friday night. (We had a lot of good fun helping or may be hindering
Mark with his deliveries in the ACS van).
Simon found
that money could be made at school by selling bullets. The only problem was
that the bullets came from the old rifle range on West Malling air station and
with it came the chance of an encounter with White Van Man (security guards),
the range was not far from the main hub of the air station, but it was a
challenge to be had. There were many day and night missions on the air field,
trying to outwit white van man. Some of the night missions were a bit scary and
out of this world?
Simon had a
good sense of adventure, at age 13 we went up to Ilkley moor on an adventure
holiday with Lord Halifax , some of the things we did ranged from caving, rock
climbing to map reading and canyoning , we stayed under canvas in all weathers
.The second time we went, a year later,
we were booked to stay for ten days , we were the only two there, but we found
out that the week after we left a party of 15 girls were arriving,( a plan
formed) we both managed to get our parents to agree to let us stay for an extra week (a good week was
had) .
Simon came several
times to the south of France on holiday with my father and I to visit my relatives,
Simon’s French was a mix of broken English and lots of hand movements, but he
did get himself understood, we both had an excellent time. One of the things we
always came back with was one or two biscuit tins full of bangers, but not the
small ones only the big or very big ones!
We lost touch
with each other for a short time but through Friends Reunited we found each other again, it
was as if we had not see each other for only a few months, we would talk on the
phone at least once a month, help with each other’s problems and chat for many
hours. The last time we got together was October 2007 when Simon came up with his
mountain bike, Simon wanted to ‘ride some hills’ as he put it, but I think the
hills in Lancashire are a little bigger than the hills in Cambridge. By the
time we finished Simon had done one mountain too far!!! He needed a little help
to get home but it could have been A) the 2 or 3 bottles of wine we had the
night before or B) the 3.30 am bed time after we had been reminiscing, it was
good to see him doing what he enjoyed.
It was good
to have had the time and the memories with Simon, there are many many more
things we did together but they are memories I will save for myself, which I
will never forget. It will be 32 years of a good friendship I am glad to have
had.