Twink
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Cottage tales | 8 comments
Love birds cigarette card
When I was six I met an amazing child. She was in the year below me at school. Of course fraternising with the year below was frowned on.
“They’re babies.”
But she was no baby. Intelligent, exquisite and fun, she became my best friend.
I’ve been searching for her for years, hoping to rekindle the joy. The daughter of a famous father she shunned the blazing light of the Internet and vanished.
This morning I discovered that she had died in February of this year. She was only 55 years old. A very special friend that died too young. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about this friendship – the best and closest that I’ve ever had.
We used to say that we were like the Lovebirds on this Brooke Bond 1961 tea card. I’ve kept it safe for 50 years. It has buoyed me up every time that I looked at it. She was the one in the centre and I was the bird on the right. We reckoned that the other bird was just decoration
Leave a reply
I’ve been reading and running for a while after starting a new job. I’m so sorry to hear you weren’t able to reconnect before your friend’s death.
Thank you so much for leaving comments.
Yes, Steve H, twink was a chatterbox but I was never bored. My home life was a bit conventional – and like all families a bit odd but we didn’t talk about it… Twink’s unusual family was all above board. A bit of a whirlwind that rarely died down.
I know that I said that I’d write about the experience the next day but I’m finding it hard to come to terms with her death. I do want to write a celebration of Twink’s childhood, I’m thinking about it a lot and eventually I’ll write about our friendship. It’s just a matter of weeks.
I’m so sorry you didn’t get a chance to meet her again before she died. 55 is tragically young.
My condolences Fiona – how sad to learn of your old friend’s death before you’d had a chance to reconnect with her. But congratulations too – you have known the joy of true friendship and so many people go through life without ever experiencing that. I do wish you’d had a chance to catch up with other again though. I look forward to reading the whole story when you feel able to share it. xx
Gosh, Fiona, that’s rather tragic; I’m so sorry!
What a shame, and a sad ending before the story has even begun.
So sorry you heard of the death of your friend, especially after looking for her for so long. Looking forward to hearing the story of your friendship. It sounds very special.
>>She was the one in the centre and I was the bird on the right.
How did you come up with that? – the one in the middle “appears” to be a chatterbox! and the one on the right looks “bored rigid” 😉
is that a clue? 😉