Friends and friendships

Within the Family, apart from my parents there was only Dominic in my early adolescence who I counted on as a friend.  Together we held a secret tryst and trusted no one else for many years. 

Ross,Dominic, Angelo, Susie, Rachela, Edmund.    A Party? 

We were very close mentally and physically although being 18 months older than me he was stronger.
It was not until I met and married my first wife Monica that I trusted another person totally without inhibitions. 
Even so a strange telepathic aura existed between Dominic and me, and now that we are older and more cantankerous a relationship still exists but it is less intense and more relaxed and wholehearted. 
Because of this obsession with Dominic and our precious secrets we rather tended to exclude Angelo from our group which annoyed him greatly. 
Dominic and I had developed that ability to anticipate each others thoughts, which led us to experiment with a pack of playing cards.  He would go undercover in his bed and choose a card at random by torchlight, and I undercover in my bed would try and tell him the card.
We had to stop doing this as we had became so good at it that we became frightened, especially when I was getting 8 out of 10 correctly

ROSS
I had an instinctive and trusting friendship with Martin Pontin.  Being of similar age we went to the same schools at the same time, so he was always around. 
For a time when we were young we did not look elsewhere for friendship. 
He taught me how to fish with a line and a net, how to mend punctures on a bicycle and adjust the brakes and fit the dynamo correctly. 
I taught him how to shoot an air rifle straight and make catapults and freely shared my toys with him as well as all the money that I had stolen.  
Ross came to all our birthday parties and his Grandma, Mrs Annis, a lovely if strict old woman who taught us how to knit scarves, something that I kept secret from other boys in case they ridicule me.  Overall Teresa led her own life with her own friends but tagged along on the more exciting of our adventures. 

There we would be, with Dominic and me vying for supremacy and Teresa handing out her cautionary “What Ifs?” and Angelo playing catch up plaintively calling “Wait for me”.
We shared family friends like Susie whom we met on the ice cream vans in the Burnthouse lane area of Exeter, and who came and worked in the Ice cream factory.  Susie was always around with us and at home.  Susie was a friendly, generous girl, with the ability to like and be liked by all, she was great fun and she spent several Christmasses with us.  Susie told me that she was amazed to see the Christmas pudding set alight with Brandy.
Anne Rouse our cousin came around to play sometimes, but her parents liked her to be on her best behaviour, especially as we were a mad lot, and always getting into mischief, and they did not want their daughter getting any ideas.

My Best Friend BRYAN WILSON.

You can read about Bryan and me elsewhere during my Army days.

BRYAN AND ME  2003.

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