Thirties
When my oldest brother Paul died in June 2010, it all seemed so very tragic and unfair. He was only sixty two years old. My father, Philip, died at the age of sixty five in 1979 and my younger brother, Simon, was sixty six when he faded away in 2022. Three male members of my family gone before they had ticked off their three score years and ten. Gone too soon. But let me tell you about three deaths that have occurred just this year concerning thirty somethings. The first was Charlie - short for Charlotte. She was one our daughter Frances's closest friends at The University of Birmingham. Charlie lived a chaotic life but she was creative and interesting and in many ways back then she was still finding herself. She came to recognise that she was gay and married her long time partner in London just last year. She had just directed an avant garde film which I hope to see one day though it will never be watched by a wide audience. It was something she had always wanted to do. And then ...