Clement

It was a very great pleasure to meet Clement at Peter's memorial service.  He is the son of my cousin Andy. Clement's mother is French and when the relationship with Andy broke down Pat returned to France taking her two children with her.  So the opportunity to meet her and Clement had never really arisen, although I think they were in touch with Peter and Joan and, I *think*, maybe also Penny. (We didn't get to meet Emilie at the memorial service - she was away on some training course on a ship somewhere).

We enjoyed meeting both of them.  They were both charming and  amiable.  Pat speaks lovely English  Clement very little but we muddled along with his not-good English and my not-good French and occasional translations from Pat or Andy when it all got too difficult..  A lovely young man. And very lovely to look at as well. Freyja says I am quite obsessed by his looks but I have to say that the first thing I thought when I saw him was: "Who on earth is that remarkably beautiful young man?"  I hoped that further opportunities to meet with him and his mother might arise - and maybe to meet Emilie as well one day.

So I was extremely sorry to get a phone call from Penny at 9:15 on Sunday morning to tell me that Clement had been killed in a motorbike accident overnight. 

I knew, when I saw that the call was from Girton (my phone tells me who's calling if it knows the number) that it was not going to be good news.  Only Peter ever rang from that number and it was unlikely to be him.  And even if it had been, it would have been something extremely dire for him to ring at that time on a Sunday morning (although I am always up and about by then). When the caller turned out to be Penny, I assumed the bad news was about Joan. Took me a while to process what she was actually saying.

Poor Clem.  Such a lovely young man.  And poor Pat and Andy to have lost a son so abruptly at 21.  And poor, poor Joan, so recently widowed and now to have lost a grandson.

I am coming rapidly to the opinion that no one should be allowed to drive a motorbike until they are 95 and a half years old and then only with the written permissions of their mother. Far too many young men are coming to grief when riding their motorbikes.