The Value of Friendship

A few weeks ago I attended a friend’s birthday party. I went, armed with a bottle of Champagne as a gift for Sporty Friend (and a bottle of Hooch to remind her of our student days), a bottle of Prosecco, a bottle of Gordons, a bottle of tonic and a lime. You can probably imagine by the description of my picnic hamper, what kind of party it was. It was a Ladies only affair and it took on the form of the last night at Pony Club Camp. I saw girls that I had not seen for the best part of 20 years. It was amazing because we picked up where we had left off. For a few hours we were no longer Mothers, Wives, or Divorcees; we were teenagers again. Laughing like we did back in the day, when Medical Friend was busy French plaiting my hair in our Religious Education class. Ignored by our class Teacher, it was going swimmingly until the Headmaster entered the classroom; and Medical Friend had to slide gracefully back into her seat beside me under his steely glare. I swear that some of the half finished conversations that began in 6^th Form were completed that sunny Saturday afternoon. It made me realise that the camaraderie we shared as teenagers had not died and never ever will. It has brought us together again as friends, leading to new conversations on Facetube and promises that we must not let it be so long before we meet again. Especially as we all live within an hour of each other. Have you noticed that we make more effort to keep in touch with people when they live far away? And we merrily neglect the friends who live 8 miles away as we are always so busy. At this point I will just confess that I still haven’t been for my 2014 Christmas drink with my brother, whose house is a mile from mine.

When I was 13 years old, a group of us at school were training for a 10 kilometre run.

The games Teacher who was coaching us, asked who had managed to get out for a run after school. When we all said that we had been too busy, he then replied “If I had offered to pay you £10 for each run, how many would you have managed to do?” We all agreed that we would have gone running every night, leaving Mr Games Teacher to inform us that weren’t too busy, just idle and money hungry.

How right he was. If money was on offer in exchange for friend visiting, how much more effort would we make?

I now value my friends and family far more than I did when I was younger. Perhaps it’s because I live in the Country, where people would actually die if they did not ask or indeed accept, the help and support from friends. Not just the friends that you meet for coffee or the Mummy-Friends who you chat to at the school gates. It’s also those friends who you don’t see all that often, but know that if you needed them, you would just have to pick up the phone and they would be screeching into your drive and sprinting towards your house half an hour later.

Around the same time as I attended this birthday-and-mother-of-all-catch-ups-party, I got a phone call from an old friend who I hadn’t seen in years. It was very early in the morning when Posh Friend called. So early in fact, that I only answered my phone as I thought someone needed help. I was out on my horse at the time and I had to keep asking Posh Friend to “hang on a minute” so that I could swop hands and shorten my reins.

“How the hell are you?” I asked.

 “I’ve had an absolutely shitty week” was the reply “and I’m handing in my notice this morning.”

I was shocked. Posh Friend had always been so methodical and organised that this seemed totally out of character. I also knew that Posh Friend lived in a house owned by their employer, so I asked if they were really sure that this was the right thing to do. Did they have a job to go to? Where would they live?

Posh Friend was hesitant and admitted that there was no job on standby and that they would have to immediately find somewhere else to live.

Would it not be better to stick it out, I asked, just until they had another job to go to?

Posh Friend admitted that it was huge worry that they had no job to walk in to, but the strain of the position was so great that they felt a great weight had been lifted from their shoulders simply by deciding it was time to leave.

Posh Friend then asked what I would do in the situation, what advice could I give them?

“Look Dave,” I said “Just be yourself. But don’t let Samantha wear that bloody dress with the triangles on it, because she looks like something out of a Littlewoods catalogue.”

It just goes to show that even old friends don’t always take your advice.