Tricky day yesterday and this is from a message to a friend.

"Today I went down to York just to have a good walk round and do some serious thinking about my possible future as a mathematics teacher. I was wandering down towards Bootham Bar and I ran into Neil Grant a really good friend from the 1980s who also came to my wedding. You knew him well I believe as well and I had seen him at the Peace Festival last September but he did not have much time to talk but today we had lots of time. He is well but he gave me a really shocking bit of bad news. I do not know if you knew Simon Hoban I am sure you did but he died last November from as far as I can see some sort of heart related complaint which was long-standing but something he could have lived with for years in other words no one expected him to die from it any time soon. He was at a rave style party something he had been getting into with Jimmy over the past few years and he collapsed there. I do not know any other details. For quite a while I have been meaning to get in touch with Simon and Jim but felt slightly apprehensive because the last time I saw him in 1996 he seemed a bit annoyed with me that I had not been in touch and I did explain I was very preoccupied with raising my family and he accepted that and gave me his new address in Scotland but unfortunately I just lost it and you know how it goes things just drift as I say I was very preoccupied with family which I have been until recently to be quite honest. I had decided that this year I would get in touch and go and visit them in Scotland but now it is too late to see Simon. Crying out loud mate it just really hit me I was stood in the middle of the pavement whilst Neil was telling me all this just crying my eyes out with him hugging me and then I was asking for details and then I started crying again and then he was embracing me again. Oh boy. I do not think he expected that reaction from me but I actually knew Simon really well and I know it sounds a bit middle-class and twee but he really helped me at the University with my intellectual development and actually gave me added confidence in what I was doing especially when I said I didn't think I was doing very well when in actual fact according to the tutors and him I was. I also just felt really sad because I don't have any regrets from my years at York except one major one: I should have kept in touch with you and many other people and I feel that after I got married I just neglected my friends but I did find it hard to fit everybody in because me and Fiona, as I said to Neil today became some sort of centre of a bigger friendship network around the Stamford Bridge and Pocklington area which involved over 60 people. It was all new to me to be quite honest after all I was some sort of lowlife dosser doing voluntary work then I go to university get married and I seem to have some sort of respectability and was meeting all sorts of people who I had previously regarded as rather dubious in other words "normals". Neil was very surprised today at how different I had become but he was the same guy I used to know and he was very happy that I was thriving, prospering and would be getting into either maths teaching or working with mentally handicapped people again in the near future. When I see you in the next two or three weeks I will fill in the details verbally. I was in a total daze when I walked around York after Neil left me. I said prayers in the Minster and I started crying and I even had a weep when I walked around the University when I realised that I was actually walking round places I have walked around nearly 25 years ago with Simon and the many times that I had had lunch with him. I will truly miss him I really will and I am going to get in touch with Jimmy immediately by letter and then telephone. I spoke to Neil about this and he said they occasionally mentioned me and it was always positive if anything they had wondered why I hadn't got in touch over the years. He said Jim would welcome me contacting him. Sorry to break this to you my friend and in a way over the next few years I can imagine a bit more of this may appear. It just really hit me that I should have got in touch with them last year and not left it."

Moral of the story " Always say hello because you might not get the chance to say goodbye."