Greetings pards,
I hope you’re playing a good hand at the tables this fine day.
A few years ago when I recorded the episode on Letters From Hollywood with Dirk, we raised a glass to departed friends. One was my old mate Magic Paul who I’d lost contact with some time in the early 2000s. When I learned that he’d passed away I spread the word amongst all my old muckers and none of us had seen him for years. It’s such a shame we do this as we get older. Drifting apart, moving towns, changing interests etc.
Anyway.
This morning one of those muckers sent me a couple of pics he found whilst having a clear out. Back in those days a few of us shared a house down De la Pole Ave in Hull, scene of many a debauched evening and subject of many fondly recalled anecdotes about being a smashed 20-something year-old in the early 90s. Heady days.
Paul was a huge Trek fan, even having his own Wrath of Khan era starfleet uniform (which was a much rarer thing in those days as cosplay was way more niche than it is today). He spent an age trying to convince a few of us, including Loz, to play the FASA Star Trek RPG. When we finally did, I was so mashed I fell asleep an hour in and missed most of it but Loz and Neil (AKA Noel Clippingstalk) sat through it and later vowed never to play it, or allow Paul to GM for them, ever again. They weren’t Trek fans and the meticulous approach from our Games Master and adherence to Trek aesthetics was just too dry for them I suspect.
Paul was a character. He was a classic old school geek with a vast RPG collection (I still wonder what happened to all of his Morrow Project and Aftermath stuff when he passed away as his parents were both long since gone and he had no siblings), and a passion for wargaming, napoleonic history, folk music, Samson tobacco and Rich Tea biscuits. He also had a ridiculous collection of 60s and 70s SF and Fantasy paperbacks and I’m pretty sure, had he still been around today, his to-read pile would probably dwarf any of ours.
I first met him when he trained to be a psychiatric nurse in the same school as myself and Robbo (see Wheels of Terror Part One – Part Two WILL arrive some day). He never completed the training for one reason or another but we stayed friends for a number of years afterwards. He was an acquired taste for some, but to me he was kind, generous, quick to laugh and an all-round good bloke. If a bit nicotine stained round the edges. What’s more, had we still been in touch he would have been a marvellous presence in a podcast like this because his knowledge of all the gubbins we gas about was deep. And I like doing this podcast with old friends like Robbo, Loz and Tash as well as making new ones along the way.
I regret losing touch with him.
He wasn’t particularly into technology and had no social media presence that I was ever aware of so I dedicate this report, and this tiny section of the Internet, to him.
Breakfast in the Ruins 