Those of you who have visited my website at some time or other would by now have realised that the content of my pages is pretty positive. 

For sure you may have read about me and my immediate family, read a joke, discovered something about my home country or even browsed at my favourite hobby pages. However I feel I have a duty to dedicate a little space in my corner in cyberspace to pay tribute to a family member who sadly departed a few months ago at a tender age of only 23 years. A person who despite leaving at such an early time in his life, has had the opportunity to do so much to touch the hearts of many people around him. 

I want you to meet my cousin ROBERT.

Robert was not a relative that I can say I grew up with because he was so much younger than me and I had just started my teens when he was born. Nonetheless we never lived quite next to each other so we would only meet on some special occasion like his birthday, Christmas etc. It wasn't long before the years rolled by and even he was past his teens. Regrettably I admit that I missed out completely on his childhood the next time we met he was already past 20, a keen offroader and Land Rover fanatic. We met on our way to an Iron Maiden concert. He had offered to come by and pick me and my wife up on the way to the concert venue so that we would travel there together. It wasn't long before we started making up lost ground and getting to know what happened since we last saw each other. There was so much to talk about...... 

Thankfully we had the same music tastes so it was not long before we were talking bands, gigs, albums, charts and so on. 

We had another common passion, the love of Cars. Robert was more into offroad vehicles and Land Rover was like a cult to him. He had joined the "All Wheel Drive Club" as soon as he bought his first LR 4x4 and pretty soon he was active in many club events.  I liked cars more but we both competed in many events with our vehicles. Robert loved Offroad Trials and Rallies where he had a degree of success at Novice level. I was a Hillclimb and Sprint driver and speed was the game in my sport. 

Despite the different disciplines we competed in I found out that Robert was, like myself, a keen Formula 1 enthusiast only to discover that we supported rival teams and drivers. I wouldn't imagine us sitting on a couch watching a race together. the rivalry between us would have been too strong. We would certainly have rubbed tyres together and drove one another off the couch! Nothing that a couple of beers wouldn't settle after the race. Ferrari and M. Schumacher were his men. I wouldn't be anywhere near. We even went abroad to see the same race, the GP of Barcellona in Spain. It wasn't the same year though but I wonder how great it would have been if we sat there together. I was there in '98 and my team had won then. I wouldn't imagine Robert would have been at all happy with me beside him there. 

Robert was a rock music fan and one would certainly know whether he was home or not to the tune of Guns and Roses rambling loud throughout the house. Everyone around the house had to get used to it. Pleas to lower the volume fell on deaf ears right from the start. "If you want to enjoy G 'n R, listen to them loud" he used to say. And so it was. Robert was also a fan of Naval Vessels and a keen Baseball Cap collector.

Well that was briefly Robert the cousin. Now I must tell you a little about Robert the man. Hmmm what can I say better than he was exemplary. A true young gentleman. Robert was always available to lend a hand. Things like "I don't have the time" or "I can't" or "Maybe some other time" where not phrases in his vocabulary. He would say "Yes" before you would ask him for something. This made him a lot of friends who truly respected him and who now sadly miss him.

Robert studied and qualified in IT and had joined a small aviation company as a Computer engineer. His job even meant that he had to travel a few places abroad and at times even thought he would settle for good in the US. Things seemed to settle down when recently he met Allison , his girlfriend. It was as though they were born for one another. Wedding plans were not yet fixed but they had already bought a nice house of their own and things were looking quite bright. They made promises to each other but as they say "Promises are made to be broken". 

Sadly it was neither Robert nor Alison who would break any of these promises. It was fate, in the terrible guise of terminal malady. Cancer interfered in their plans and made sure that they will not be realised. He was diagnosed with a rare kind out of which he could not recover despite hitting him at such an early age. The illness destroyed his entire nervous system and it spread all over him making it impossible to contain and eradicate with modern medicine. It was a sad end to fine romance, to a gentleman, a relative, a friend.

The funeral was a testament of the magnitude of this young man. The hundreds of people who attended the church service that morning would have done him proud while watching us from the skies. I am sure the people who gathered there have put a smile on his jovial face. A clear testament of friendship and loyalty to a person who will forever be missed.