The passing of Keith has really made me emotionally think of my time in Aber. It has suddenly made it all seem just a short time ago, regardless of the passing years.
Jim Kettle, Bev and myself spent much time together either playing football and talking about football in the Home Café especially when “Mr Statistics” Bob Culley arrived. We would get drunk together in a variety of venues mainly after games. Except on a Tuesday and Friday nights because we believed that getting drunk before games would affect our performance. So we never had more than four pints.
Keith, as they say , was a “ beautiful boy”. He was as graceful on the football field, with a killer punch, as he was off the field.
I remember one Saturday morning seeing him standing at the crossroads in the center of Aber. I went to the Home Café and when I returned he was still there. I asked him what he was doing. He replied “ waiting to ask someone to the dance tonight”. I relied “what, the first person you ask will come with you”. He said “ No someone will however”. He would turn up with the most stunning women. No one else “had the balls” to do what he was doing and he had a slight stutter!
I know I didn’t realize it at the time but Aber was a very special place. It really was the University for the Welsh as much as the University of Wales. Yet us boys, like Jim and Jerry, from Brum were readily accepted. Jim loved it so much he stayed for seven years.
The 60’s were a time of great change and upheaval around the world. Yet in Aber we were safe, although, I think, we frequently tried not to be. We laughed a lot and we cried when our teams lost, as they frequently did. We played to win on the field and in life, we drank too much and then looked for love, frequently in my case with mind numbing failure. Yet somehow we built a foundation which has supported us for the rest of our lives.
As my old mother used to say “ glorious days in the sunshine of your youth”
We all, and Keith especially, made the most of our coming into manhood.
Thank you Aber!
Lev.
Cen Williams, a friend of Keith and Bernie's, also wrote this poem (originally in Welsh) about Keith ...
Think of the good times, savour the wine
When our days are sad, and life is full of tears
The shadows dark, and the horizon grey;
Savour the wine and think of those good years.
Days when we think of Keith descending in decline,
The hours of sad reflection that upon us weigh;
Delight in all the good old days, savour the wine.
Weeks of unspoken suffering that he had
Those moments of hope, those minutes of dismay,-
Savour the wine, remember the good times not the sad
Times when non relenting waves pounded his shore
Debris and wreckage littering his bay;
Savour the vintage wine and days of yore.
He fought the fight with laughter in his eye.
And let us all remember the old Keith, so we may
Take pleasure in that wine of days gone by.
Diolch am gael dy adnabod Keith, roeddet ti’n un o fil.
Bernie also reports that last week they had attended the funeral of Mike Benjamin whose wife Sue Cole was a friend of Eileen's, and who I vaguely remember from Aber days, and who was a Professor of Physiology at Cardiff.
As Bernie put it "a sombre but enlightening week."