Sunday, 13 September 2015

Ian Freed

From: Ian Freed [mailto:drifreed@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: Friday, 18 September 2015 3:46 AM
To: Andrew Byrne
Subject: Auld Acquaintance


Hello Andrew,

It was good of Ian Rewell (known at school as Sticks for obvious reasons) to put us in touch. I read the blog with great pleasure remembering the names and faces of those mentioned.

About a year ago, one of my daughters found pictures of a reunion on the net- I still don't know how. I recognised so many and no-one has changed one little tiny bit from when I last saw any of them in 1977. I know it's a cliche…but where has the time gone?

I believe I caught a glimpse of you a number of years ago as I was arriving and you were leaving a coffee bar in Darlinghurst Road. I didn't run after you just in case I was wrong!  I get back to Sydney from England every couple of years to see my old Mum and the rest of my family.

I have lived in England since late 1978 and am winding down after 33 years in General Practice in Essex. Lynn and I will be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary next April… 40 years and never a cross word! Plenty of furious ones though!

We have 3 children, a son of 31 and twin daughters of 25. They are all involved in their own lives, relationships and jobs- none of them medical (music composer,lawyer and marketing).

People still ask me, usually in bemusement, how I could have left Australia. It took me about 25 years to realise that the answer is England is England and Australia is Australia with positives and negatives on both sides. I have a pretty good life over here and a few years ago bought an old farmhouse in France, near Poitiers. We spend a reasonable amount of time there but,with more time available in the future, should make greater use of it. And I am a season ticket holder at my beloved Arsenal Football Club (soccer to you guys).

When I come back to Oz, I always catch up with Mike Freelander (who copied my answers in a pathology exam and did better than I did) and I ring Chris Needs to relive Monty Python's greatest sketches.

I would love to make it to one of your reunions some year and I trust you will now be able to give me plenty of advance warning.

I hope you are well and I congratulate you on keeping the old gang together.

I would be pleased for you to share my e-mail on the blog and I will say hello, in anticipation, to everyone.

Best wishes,

Ian Freed

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