Good grief

Just over a year ago, my best friend dropped dead. He was in his early sixties and many of us expected him to die, because he was hugely overweight and desperately unhappy — and the ciggies can’t have helped. ‘If you don’t look after yourself, we’re going to lose you,’ was the polite refrain from those who knew him well.

Chris had no money, no real job, precious little hope. We first met as new boys aged eight at our boarding school, where he went on to become one of the best sportsmen the school had ever had and sat a scholarship for Harrow. Early success might have played a part in what was to come. We all know people who peak prematurely.

On leaving school, Chris and I and then shared a tent while hitchhiking through Canada and America. For the next four decades, we would speak most weeks on the telephone, latterly at length as loneliness gripped him like a cancer.