Our lovely neighbour Ralph died today. He was 84 and had been in amazing health. Seems he had a heart attack. As his daughter said, he was at home (where he's lived for 34 years). He was an extraordinary, gentle man, kind, humble, interesting, generous. After my accident, he came round and offered Annika money. He refused to do nothing, so Annika asked him to mow the lawn, which he did dutifully, as well as chopping up our logs. Since I've been home, I pop round every week for a cup of tea and chat, take Ralph shopping, down to the doctor. It's a lovely mutual relationship though: he'd come out and put my wheelchair inside the house if I didn't need it when driving, check to see I was OK when I arrived back in the car. On VE day a few years ago, I asked him what he'd done in the war. "Oh nothing special". I later discover that he was a navigator in a Lancaster bomber and had completed over 30 raids... He still has all his log books. Annika got him to come down to the kids' school to talk about his experiences. They were fascinated, especially when he started talking about the bombs. I'm really going to miss him. Each time I go outside I check his window to see if he's OK and now I'll never see him again.
