"Even if I got rid of all my problems, I'd just go out and get new ones..."

1982 - 2004
8:25 p.m. on 2004-06-16

When I was five, like all the other kids in the area, I went to my local primary school. It was small, and, at that time, had a genuine community feel. There were maybe fifteen of us in a class, boys and girls. We grew up together, learnt maths, english, art together. We played together in the concrete yard, built snowman in the playing field, won prizes at the annual summer fair and in our final year, we went on a week long field trip together. It was one of the best weeks of my life.

I wouldn't say that DV and I were friends, even at primary school. But we played together, in the way that the entire class would play together. As an eight year old boy, he would be lead batter in our rounders teams. Sent out there by our teacher, armed with wooden bat and (I swear) concrete ball, our entire class would troop reluctantly out into the playground.

DV loved it. Like I say, he was our lead batter. The best in the class. He would 'slog' (the term of the time) that ball for what seemed like miles, leaving all us fielders standing around staring. Frequently it would fly over the fence of a neighbour, and I remember more than once trooping around with DV to knock apologetically on the door and put on our best, innocent school kid faces.

DV was also the class joker. Well, one of them anyway, since at eight, all boys become class jokers at one point or another. DV's trick was fart gags. He could produce the most horrible stenches, and remains the instigator of most of the foulest whiffs it's ever been my unfortunate chance to be near.

At high school, the class broke apart. Even those kids, like me, who were filed off to the local comprehensive, were lost in the sheer numbers. A bigger, faceless gathering of kids. I can't really remember speaking to DV again after that. I always had a vague idea of what he was doing, in that way that mutual friends, and the parental community always brings. I seem to remember there were plans of him joining the army, but he must have returned. My stepsister saw him only a couple of weeks ago, out at the pub, and again, this week, walking out around our town.

Last night he was killed in a bike accident.

I keep thinking I should go to the funeral. I didn't know him, but he touched my life, as much as a kid can to another kid, between the ages of six and eleven. I can barely remember his face, but I remember the way he used to slog that rounders ball, the look of staged infuriation on our teacher's face, that masked his secret amusement.

And now I'm crying, because he was twenty two years old, and now he's gone. And he'll never be an adult, or get married, or have kids of his own, to whom he can teach how to hit a rounders ball.

It's not fair.

<< >>