'Absent Friends'

This year, as we do every year, when we sat at our Christmas lunch, we stopped for a few moments to toast 'Absent Friends'. It's a tradition which goes back to Christmases at my parents', and it's a catch-all phrase because, for me, it has always also included absent family.

However, as this year ends, I have been thinking how fortunate I am that I remain in touch with so many of the friends I had when I was a small boy and teenager in Mombasa, of whom two are pictured at the Swimming Club along with my brother, left. It's remarkable because all of those Kenya friends have wandered the world yet somehow we have never lost touch.

Sadly, a few have died, but whether I remember the living or the dead, it isn't as an adult that they come to mind but as I knew them when we were all young some sixty or more years ago.