Mr Raymond Burns

WHEN a friend from childhood, and an old  school friend at that, has passed on it leaves a deep sense of sadness.

When it was one who was best man at your wedding it leaves a wider chasm in the society in which one lives.

So the departure from this life of Raymond Burns, of Marshallstown, takes another rung out off the ladder of life.

But the memories will live on.

Mine of Raymond stretch way back to those halcyon days at Legamaddy school when we gathered of an evening after school around Tommy Joe McCormick’s blacksmith shop and on into our teenage years when we enjoyed the weekend sojourns to the Regal Ballroom and the British Legion in Ardglass, to Kilcoo, Hilltown and even beyond for we were adventurous, or so we thought, in those heady days.

Later years took Raymond and I down different roads in life so our contact was not as strong as it had once been.

But the bonus of retirement brought us back into conversation again, sometimes about life in general, seldom about the weather, but always about cars and in particular Jaguars, which Raymond loved so well.

Those times are now gone  but those precious memories will linger on. And they were good ones, moulded in a time when the earth was that bit younger and a better place to live on.

Rest in peace Raymond.

Michael Drake.