I met Dave when I attended South East London College for Further Education in Lewisham Way. Dave and Stuart Clark used to sit right behind me during our lessons and I got to know them because they were always borrowing my colouring pens. I used to say " why don't you buy your own" and they used to laugh and say why should we when we can borrow yours". I used to go with the two of them to the Italian cafe across the road where they would always order a Patti made by the cafe owner and Dave would always smother it in brown sauce.
Our friendship developed over the years and we would regularly get together at weekends with our girlfriends Janet, Diane and Yvonne at various venues in London and locally. During that time we met up with Dennis and Janice who were long standing friends of Dave and Diane from school. The great eight friends were born. The friendship lasted through all our weddings and through the early years of our children. We and our children would stay with Dave and Diane on occasional weekends and they would stay with us. That was when Dave used to play football on Sundays and we would be obliged to stand on the sidelines in all weathers to watch and cheer despite our, less than enthusiastic, love of the game. That was until I was studying for an exam when I had to confess that although would have loved to have come along and see him play I would have to do my homework.
As our respective families grew up we lost contact and I came across Dave's name on BT's staff email addresses database. I had just been clearing my desk for early retirement and wondered whether this was the same Dave Blenkarn that I once knew. BT was a big company after all and there maybe more than one David Blenkarn, so I emailed him and he confirmed that he was one and the same. We agreed to meet at a restaurant at Crown Point near Ightam Mote and our friendship was reborn.
In the following years and up to very recently the great eight have got together frequently at each other's houses for meals and parties to celebrate family occasions. Every year we would meet at Rochester Sweeps and Dickens festivals and enjoyed many short holidays together in Ireland, Wales and England including Patrington in Yorkshire, Blenkarn village in Cumbria as Dave was an enthusiastic family history researcher. On these trips Janet would generally be in charge of breakfasts and always made sure that plenty of brown sauce was packed for Dave. There was always good rapport between all the characters in our group and Dave was an essential part of that and will be greatly missed. Rest in peace our true friend we loved you so much.
Love
Harry & Janet XX