Where are you ?

As I approach the half century and consider my impact upon the world (minimal) and the world's impact on me (monstrous) I lie awake at night and consider other more important questions. Will Sheffield Wednesday ever win the Champions League ? Will I ever lose those last few ounces to bring me back to my fighting weight (five stones to be precise) ? Will I find out where two of my school friends disappeared to ?
It is not urgent. I am simply curious. If they are hiding from the combined police forces of the Western world then I don't want them to give themselves up. I simply wonder. My friend Sam, possibly the finest full back since Skinner Normanton to destroy a ball-juggling Fleur-de-lys Ronaldo, finds a real faith in God and does his work in difficult conditions. But where are Michael Duerden and Jerome Clough ?

Michael, from Todmorden, out there in the badlands between Yorkshire and Lancashire was the bloke I always picked first in my footy team as I struggled to put a game together on those desolate Fylde coast Sundays.
Jerome was more of a mystery. Father something to do with Coca-Cola and Liberia but like Michael never mentioned in any Rossallian newspapers. I hope they have prospered and I really would like to know how they have got on with their lives. I have no intentions of appearing at their front door to reminisce about juvenile pranks or profound speculations about the merits of boarding schools (or their failings).

Out of all the people you know and talk with regularly where do thoughts like this come from ? Why these two boys/men - last seen in 1976 ? Why have their names floated back to me all of a sudden. If for instance my life was summarised as rapidly as possible it would read. University. Failed. Dole. Job. Thinking; temporary. Still there now. Clearly Permanent. Librarian. Married. Divorced. Kidney failure. Transplant. Val. Baby. Carrie. Now 11. Which brings me back to the impact of an individual and the connections that he or her makes around him. C. M. Duerden - Where are you ? J. Clough - Where are you ? Is it really a small world ?

Rossall School was a strange environment to grow up in. I always felt somewhat of an outsider and somewhat rebellious but always with the feeling that my idealism might be, after all, misplaced. I couldn't play the games which that world wanted then and I certainly have not since. I still wait for that Eureka moment when the world I inhabit now finally makes sense and I understand it. If I have found answers to questions they have come from the pages of a book. Answers balanced between interpretation and criticism but not essentially mine. I think I am still doing now what I did then. I act, I posture, I pretend, I look as if I am in control but I am not. And then suddenly I think in the midst of this middle age, in the dark of the night, I wonder Whatever happened to ....