Fred and Charles

Charles and Fred, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

11th September again, our special day... 22 years since meeting in London, when Fred was on a week's holiday with Ida and I was in London for a couple of days for my work.

It was a nice late summer day, as they used to have in the 1980's before the influence of global warming. It was a Tuesday evening and I had just come back from a two week holiday in Tuscany with my sister Diana. My ears were a bit blocked from the flight and I could hardly hear. However, it was my luck to be sent to London for two days audit of a brewery in Barnes. So, I went up by car (an apple green Mini Metro) to stay with my other sister, Fiona, at our family house on Oakley Street in Chelsea.

Fred in the meantime, was studying at university in Groningen, in northern Netherlands and had come over for a week's holiday in London, with his hosuemate Ida, having enjoyed his previous visits to England. They were staying in Earls Court in West London.

He took Ida to the pub he had visited on a previous visit, where he had spent an enjoyable evning withsome Italian anarchists.

I had gone to the pub to meet up with someone to whom I had previously lent some money. It was a busy evening ass, Earls Court tended to be in the early 1980's and there were not so many seats. I found one which looked free and asked the chap sitting next to it whether it was free. He told me it was, but this didn't stop me from asking him the same question again a few minutes later... and so it all began.....