Goodbye to you, my trusted friend We've known each other since we were nine or ten Together we've climbed hills and trees Learned of love and ABC's Skinned our hearts and skinned our knees Goodbye my friend, it's hard to die When all the birds are singing in the sky Now that the spring is in the air Pretty girls are everywhere Think of me and I'll be there We had joy, we had fun We had seasons in the sun But the hills that we climbed Were just seasons out of time This verse and chorus from the 1973 song Seasons in the Sun, pretty much tells of Bill’s and my friendship over about 12 years. At 8-9 years old, we met in Standard 1 (grade 3) in 1959 at the local junior school. The picture in the photograph section shows the two of us dressed up as circa 15th Century Portuguese soldiers for a school play in about 1961. Along with learning our ABC’s together, we rode our bicycles everywhere, be it for fishing at the local dams, watching motor cycle mud scramble races etc. Other activities included listening to LM radio on our home made cat’s whisker radio sets, or running around the garden shooting at each other with our pellet rifles. No one was hit or hurt. Once we went a farm about 35 Kilometres from home. I am not sure if we used the motor bike shown in the photograph posted, or if it was the predecessor to it that was built from bits and pieces collected from motor cycle second hand spares shops. About half way there, down came the rain. Well, once you are wet, you cannot get any wetter. We both had Morris Minors, Circa 1954, and spent hours “hotting them up”, polishing con rods and head ports to coax every last bit of horsepower out of those poor little 800 cc motors. One evening we went to a coffee shop called The Gloworm, to meet his girlfriend Norma. He also wanted to find a lovely girl for me, so one afternoon we walked down Russell Avenue to a neighbour so he could have his hair cut. It was there that he introduced me to Johanna, my now wife of 47 years. A most unfortunate disagreement and misunderstanding ended this time of friendship around 1972. Fortunately, I was able to make contact with Bill when we went to England in 2011 and we were able to part as friends. The other photographs that I have posted are of that meeting where Bill and Norma very kindly drove up to Eastleigh to meet us where we were visiting other friends. Please accept our love and condolences on the passing of a great husband, father and man. Ray and Jo Davies.