A couple of recent events have got me thinking about friends.  Friendship is a nebulous and sometimes transitory thing.  I looked up a definition on Wikipedia:

Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an “acquaintance” or an “association”, such as a classmate, neighbour, coworker, or colleague.

Although there are many forms of friendship, certain features are common to many such bonds, such as choosing to be with one another, enjoying time spent together, and being able to engage in a positive and supportive role to one another.

Using that definition, I can see that I have been fortunate and have had a lot of friends in my life.   I’ve been supported by, and enjoyed time with, friends at school, university, work and, now, in retirement.  I have not felt the need for a lot of friends at any one time.  I seem to prefer relatively deep friendships with a few rather than broad but shallower relationships with many. 

Having said that, two of my biggest life regrets are to have failed to keep in touch with any school friends and not making the most of a network of colleagues at work.  I would like to know what some of my best mates at school are doing with their lives now and whether we still have things in common.  And putting more effort into maintaining a network of work colleagues would have made my life in jobs, and between jobs, a little easier and, perhaps, more rewarding.

Two of my four main friends at university have died recently.  The preparation for and conduct of a memorial service for one of these a few weeks ago, has been one of the events that has got me contemplating the value and meaning of friendship.  Indeed, these deaths got me thinking more about mortality as well as friendship. 

The remaining two best friends from my university era and I got together in London for lunch and a few beers to discuss our prospective speeches at our friend’s memorial service.  There was a lot of catching up on what we were each doing, a bit of nostalgia and many funny reminiscences.  But what struck me most was that, despite not meeting either of these guys for many months, we slipped into a shared history and conversation as if we talked together all the time.

We have been in contact with each other with varying degrees of intensity over 50 years and there have been many events together over that time.  However, the other surprising thing for me was how much of that shared experience I have forgotten.  As the old stories came out over the drinks, I could have sworn that I hadn’t been at several of the occasions that were being recalled.  But the photos did not lie; I was usually there!

The memorial service itself was in Oxford.  Jane and I were able to spend a very pleasant morning there before the memorial ceremony.  Oxford centre was busy with tourists and a fresh batch of students.  In a bit of free time, I visited the site of the old castle – a large mound next to the newer castle but one without good views across the city as I had hoped.  I also strolled out of the crowds along the Oxford and Coventry canal and then through the pretty and interesting area of Oxford called Jericho.  I had a very calming hour or so.

The ceremony in the Oxford Friends Meeting House was moving and the speeches (including my short one I think) were well received.  Then we adjourned briefly to a packed pub and continued some of the reminiscences and the catching up with current lives.  The whole process was very friendship affirming even though we had just lost a very good friend.

It’s been harder to keep up friendships with people I met during my 30 or so years in London since I moved completely out of the city a few years after retirement.  I managed to stay in touch with a small group of friends in London who met every few months to work our way through the alphabet of cuisines.  I made it to most of those sessions but they came to a natural end once we reached ‘Z’.  I’ll need to redouble efforts to stay in touch with the participants.

Meanwhile, I have invested time in building up a new friendship group in and around our local village.  And yes, building friendships does take effort and time.  I have been lucky after moving to Gloucestershire post-retirement in that this is Jane, my wife’s, home territory.  She has a large network of friends here and that provided a ready-made group of acquaintances. 

Also, many of her family are based nearby.  And, of course, family can be friends even though, apart from one’s partner, they are not chosen.  Jane’s sister has recently moved to the local area and I’m looking forward to getting to know her and her husband a lot better as we become able to meet up more often.  Plus, one of the things I am continually thankful for is that the relationships I have with my sons and their partners is akin to great friendships; I feel we both get on very well with them all.

My strongest local friendships have been built through my personal involvement in the local football team (Forest Green Rovers) and village events including Parish Council meetings, the Village Fete and Festival, the Pub Quiz and Crawl and, especially, the village’s Horsley Climate Action Network.  These friendships may not have the longevity of some from my education or working life but they are some of the best.

This leads me onto the second recent event that got me thinking about friendship. 

I am a frequent attendee at the local Talk Club (a session for men who generally don’t talk about feelings much, to talk about feelings).  When this was on pause two summers ago, one of the other attendees and I decided that we would continue meeting up on walks.  We would use these to keep tabs on each other thoughts and feelings and provide any support we could while enjoying the countryside, keeping our fitness up and providing custom to a few of the local pubs.  That continued until my friend needed to go into hospital to have a fairly major operation. 

A month or so after that, I walked over to his neighbouring village to see him.  It was a beautiful sunny day and a long leisurely walk.  On the way, I was struck by how much I had missed him and had enjoyed our chats.  Even after almost 70 years of making friends (and losing them again), it is still possible – indeed, easy – to make and maintain friends if one puts in the time and effort and are lucky enough to find people who are open, who listen as well as talk, and are fun to be with.