I met Neal with all the ‘clan’ soon after I met my husband, Chris, many moons ago in Dorchester, we only had brief encounters in the early years. We then had a few home & away fixtures for raucous dinner party weekends between Cardiff and Bath and then the holidaying started…
On one holiday in rural Gower in the mid 1990’s, Neal’s only responsibility towards the catering for the week was to remember to bring the loo roll and Monster Munch crisps – guess which he remembered! Fortunately, we predicted this so we and the Hickmans had also brought loo rolls – disaster averted! It was on this same holiday that he made a monster jeep/ship/plane out of 3 Airfix kits and ‘flew’ it from the bedroom window – very typical Neal antics!
Neal was the best German Guard at Escape From Colditz, often taking the role into the rest of the holiday… He was renowned for precariously balancing beer bottles or glasses on the edge of armchairs and often had to be ‘spooned’ for his regular crossing the line of crudeness but he was charmingly naughty and would put his all into playing games with a silliness that belied his impressive intelligence. As long as you didn’t cross Neal’s red lines of wearing flip flops or talking about medical stuff, you were on safe ground.
We are so lucky to have had many coastal-based holidays with Neal & Anna (you can always fully rely on Anna to be highly organised with provision of absolutely everything needed (and not needed!) for self-catering). Lots of long beachy dog walks, skimming stones in the sea, kayaking around the inlets of St.Mawes, boat trips and drinks on beautiful terraces overlooking stunning sea views.
Amazing memories. His friendship will be sorely missed XX