I've done a few memorial posts for folks I've met along the path of life or for those that have had an impact on my life like rock stars, but this is the first for a best friend that I've known for a lot of my life - just over 36 years by my reckoning. I first met Luke at Melton College while doing my BTech course (that he was also on). We shared several courses, including the Information Processing II course that had all but three of us on it and yet we were still lectured to by Neville. We became friends and would go out drinking together, usually on a Wednesday night that would result in an odd game of crutch tossing at the main junction in Melton after eating chips from the chip shop. It's one of those things where you had to be there to understand. Probably one of the most memorable drinking days was the college trip to London. I can't remember why were there - I know it was to listen to some lectures, but I've no idea for what purpose given that nobody actually went to the lectures and everyone just took the opportunity to go round London. We elected to use the Tube as a means of getting from one pub to another. There were certain landmarks we wanted to see and I remember that there was a comic store that Luke wanted to visit which I'm sure would have been great, but we were pretty pissed by the time we got there. The journey back to Melton on the train was interrupted by a pit stop in Leicester that allowed for another pint. Owen and I had decided that Luke and Adam (Parker) were going to start throwing up and had ditched them, quite wisely as they did. When the train pulled into Melton, they were in a carriage that wasn't on the platform and essentially fell off the back of the train. Although it sound like they had the rough end of the deal, I ended up having to sleep in my car at the train station that night as my girlfriend at the time kicked me out for not spending time with her in London, but that's another story.

We also went on several holidays together - Spain with just the two of us, Menorca with Adam Parker, Dominican Republic with James (a friend of Luke's) and also Crete with Adam Lane. Crete offering the best memory of Luke demonstrating his charm. We were in a bar and this girl had started talking to him. I think maybe he had a T-shirt on that caught her eye (she was wearing a Nirvana one). Anyway, Adam and I had moved away to give him some space to chat to her and some how, some way, after about 10 minutes, she'd locked herself in the toilet and was threatening to kill herself. Her friends had come over and shouted at us and we left - to the best of my knowledge, she didn't. Menorca was mostly spent spraying Parker with insect repellent, that insects seemed to ignore, but there was the night we got blind drunk and went to the kids park only to be evicted by the local law enforcement. Honestly, we were probably lucky they were so chill. At the time they came in, Luke and I were racing each other on two small spring things that didn't move. Did we really get asked if we had fire while playing connect four? The Dominican Republic was essentially spent in the toilet with diarrhea (all of us, not just me). Spain was fun, I got Luke to drag about a ton of water up a hill in a suitcase and we built a funeral pyre for a cricket.

I then moved over the pond to America, but stayed in touch with Luke. He visited several times. When I lived in San Francisco he came over with Owen, Paul and Louisa and we took a trip around Napa Valley where, for no apparent reason, Luke decided to see if he could pull the seatbelt across in the back of the hire car and managed to get stuck. He managed to free himself, but not until I'd unbolted most of the car trying to get him out.



The picture above is from when Luke visited me at my house in Orinda. This, after his American road trip where he got his hire car stuck on the salt flats and had to be towed out. The picture above is him helping me with one of my anti squirrel bird feeders that I had setup. After that we went out in Lafayette to the Round Up Saloon. And let's not forget the endless gaming hours with Paul and shouting at each with Luke complaining of how shit he was. I mean, who is Paul going to alert to the location of all the Mozambiques now?

The sad details are that he suffered a pulmonary embolism. He appears to have managed to call an ambulance, but was non responsive when they turned up. It seems his heart had stopped and, although they got it going, significant brain damage had occurred. The crazy thing is that I've had two pulmonary embolisms (one in 1986 and the other in 2008). Clearly mine were minor and his wasn't. I hadn't actually realized there were different levels until now. That said, let's be honest, if you were betting on a dead pool between the folks I've mentioned, your money would be on me and not Luke so this is a big shock. The initial event happened on Adam's birthday and Paul had been joking in our group chat that there was a party and Luke hadn't been invited. Paul had mentioned he was bringing a trifle. I didn't see the messages until later, but responded that I had the cheesecake and was on my way. This was pretty much at the time it happened and I do wonder if that's one of the last things Luke saw and though I'm dying and he's still going on about that bloody cheesecake. I hope whatever his last thoughts were, they were of something nice - hopefully his nieces as he loved them more than anything else.

My thoughts are with his sister Rachel and his nieces.
Luke, you will be missed.
RIP