Friends

Mike & Frances Stimpson

Prim's first job after teacher training was teaching in a class in Ealing with which she shared with Frances. When we bought a cottage in Bishopstone, we were surprised to find that Frances and Mike had recently moved there, just up the road. Mike had been a renowned classical guitarist, but when he was about 30 he suffered a very serious brain disease, and spent over a year in hospital, and finally came out with with severely reduced eyesight. Then Frances married him, and they had a son, Laurie, in Bishopstone (I taught him at the age of 4 to play poker). Mike took up composing, and we saw first performances of his work, at the Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room at the Royal Festival Hall, etc. He was a very 'can do' sort of a person. They had a house in Barga, Italy, which Amber and I visited for a week. I got quite friendly with Frances (nothing like that) and we started kissing on the lips (some people just do) when saying hello. When Frances came to the Corn Mill for a yoga class, Prim saw us doing it, and created merry hell. Mike told Prim that he had seen her kissing Toby, our Labrador, on the lips, so what was her problem?

Dave and Bridget Bowen

Dave was the clarinet player in the Kings College Jazz Band (I played trombone. He married Bridget, and they eventually lived in Dorchester, and then Piddletrenthide. He was very Welsh, and had 5 sisters. He was a fantastic clarinet player, self-taught. He didn't even know what key he was playing in, he could play it in any key.

They had 3 children, and they were both teachers. Their house was quite big, and had a very large and steep garden, which Bridget did major work on. It was opened for the public garden scheme once or twice a year. Later she went big into apiary (bees). Bridget played golf, and for a while we would play together, sometimes with other friends, near Piddletrenthide and Bishopstone. Yes, I quite fancied her.

Their daughter Anna was a serious letter carver. I bought a couple of her pieces, and she would stay with us at 36 St Andrews Rd while she did jobs, eg lettering on the animal memorial in Park Lane. She was a serious tango dancer as well, and came out to stay with us in San Telmo twice. She was very self-possessed, and she would stand at a Milonga on the edge of the dancers, looking out defiantly. She was attractive, and soon got asked to dance. When they saw how good she was, everybody wanted to dance with her. If you are a woman at a Milonga you could be there all night with nobody asking you to dance. How good you were was more important than how you looked, and Anna had them both. And she would go out each night, till 2 or 3 in the morning, but she seemed not interested in romance. She did the nameplate for Iain and Susan's house in the country, and Ambers aunt Kath's gravestone near Upton.

Sarah Williams

Sarah was a great friend from schooldays of Astra's. She had come down at a fairly young age to London with her mother and two sisters, to be at Chiswick Women's Aid, run by Erin Pizzey. She and Astra became good friends at school. She was a teacher, and went twice to Beijing to teach in English schools. She is rather left-wing, so it was kind of amusing to see her living in a large posh flat, with her own driver! She once took a party of kids from the Beijing school on a trip to Spain, for some reason, and she took them to a bull-fight (she is vegetarian). I became very fond of her, and she would often come round for supper, or we would go to an exhibition together.

Seba Montenegro

He is a friend of ours in BA. He was Amber's tennis coach at the Darling Tenis Club (that's how they spell it) from the start, when he was about 18. Apart from tennis coaching at the Darling, he also did it at the Sheraton hotel in the centre of town, he eventually qualified as a lawyer, lectured at the university, had a law firm with his brother Gonza and sister, and worked in the ministry of justice. Besides being a clever, talented and nice guy, he is extremely good looking. And he said apropos about something "Amber rocks!". He lives with his parents just a block away from the Boca Juniors stadium La Bombonera. He has visited us in St Andrews Rd, and also at Cass & Lucy's house in Italy.

Mercedes Frassia

When we went to BA for a 9-week holiday in 2008 we stayed in Mercedes' house in Calle Humberto Primo, San Telmo. She used to live in Belgrano, married with two sons, and working as an architect and university professor. Then she got divorced, and since she was mad keen on tango decided to move to unfashionable San Telmo, though her friends thought she was mad. She bought her house, and gradually extended it. When we stayed there it was 1 flat for 2, Mercedes' flat above, another flat for 4, a small swimming pool, a garden with asador, and a flat for 2, later another flat for 2 above. She became a very good friend. She also ran a letting agency, with about 6 people, for holiday lets, and at one time was in charge of about 50 properties. She had a son, married with 2 daughters, in Lincoln. The other son, Santiago, lived down in a house in La Boca, and was a bit of a druggie. He came and worked in her office for a couple of years, and was quite good. Then, in 2017?, she went into his house and discovered his body - he had shot himself. Mercedes was of course distraught, and came round to our flat, and stayed there a couple of nights. But, at his house in Boca, she started CasaSan, where poor local kids could come round, and have classes, food, clothes etc. People were very good, volunteering to do classes (tango, cumbia, sewing, gym etc). Also businesses, the casino gave her everything in its lost property store, a pizza company had had a do making tons of pizzas, and gave then all to her, also government, and Boca Juniors, etc etc. It grew and grew, and occupied her full time. She made special friends with two or three disadvantaged boys, who would spend weekends with her, and sometimes come round to our flat. Teo, about 11, very clever, and Chino, about 17, a bit on the spectrum. We went with her to Ongamira, Cordoba, and Tilcara, Salta, and Rio de Janeiro, she came to London, and then with us to Viet Nam, Cambodia and Beijing. A charming, intelligent, elegant, can-do person with fantastic energy for good works.

Geoff Belcher

I met Geoff at an evening class at Richmond College for old cars. I found out that he was also into Bristols, and it started from there. At home with his first wife he had an enormous cellar with about 50 motorbikes in it. There were one or two classics, but quite a lot of clapped out ordinary bikes that he had bought cheap, ridden for a while, and then dumped there. Then he got divorced and got a house in New Malden? and had his cars there. 2 Morgan 3-wheelers, Bristol 403, 405, a Healey, etc. He did a sprint at Brooklands with me in his Morgan. He got a house in the small village of Granges?, near Angouleme, and we visited him there. It appeared that he had roughly one quarter of the village. The house was a wreck, and we helped pulling wallpaper off etc when we visited after an Angouleme race meeting. We haven't been again, but he has thoroughly rebuilt it. He used to be an architect for Greenwich Council. I went skiing with him and Julie, and again later with Amber.

Diana Mason

Diana, with husband David? and sons Gavin & Oliver, lived in Rylett Crescent. David got cancer of the throat, and for 3-6 months he and Diana had a hard time of it, in and out of hospital etc. Then he died. He was very keen on old light fittings, and Diana had to deal with a whole attic full of bits and pieces. She came to work for me at Flanchford Rd, and we got on really well. Amber got to know her, and through her became a member of Hartswood Road Tennis Club. She came out to BA to stay with us 4 or 5 times.

Iain Cheyne

James Cheyne

Andrew Cheyne

Amelia Cheyne

Michel Fitzmaurice

Ken & Fio Wilson