It was from a young age that me and my cousin Tom formed a strong bond. We were close throughout our lives but it was when we were kids, especially during our early teenage years that we grew to be the best of friends. We’d meet up practically every Saturday and we always got up to so much. We were always out and about and would always be doing something different each week. If we weren’t hanging around in the park we were either ice skating, playing pool, playing tennis, one touch football, badminton or swimming. Sometimes we’d go and play golf at the New River sports centre and on one occasion we thought it was more fun sliding along on the damp greens, wrecking most of them. We also went to the cinema a lot and occasionally after we’d watched our film we would casually wonder into another screen to see what was playing and somehow end up watching that film too..!! We also spent a lot of time and all of our pocket money playing arcade games in the arcade round the corner from my mums, we were only eleven at the time and way too young to be there so it wasn’t long before we got rumbled, not just once but twice we got caught out by my dad who embarrassingly dragged us out by our ears, that said we still carried on going...!! Another regular routine we had was going for lunch to the local Wimpy restaurant where we would always sit at the same two seater table, the owner got to know us well and started reserving the table for us and would give us a strawberry milkshake on the house, we loved that. I won’t say we were naughty more mischievous, Tom a little more than me. One time when we were about 12 maybe 13 Tom came round and brought his new air pellet gun with him. We started off by shooting at targets in the garden but we soon got bored with that so without thinking of the consequences we stupidly decided to go up to my room and start shooting at passing cars. We managed to hit a couple and even managed to get one driver to stop and get out of his car to check his windscreen which we thought was really funny, this should really have been our cue to stop but no because (and I’m pretty sure it was more Tom’s idea) we stupidly decided to take it a step further and decided to start shooting at people walking by. Crazy now thinking back, but we did take health and safety seriously because we were only going to aim at the lower half of the body. Luckily our shooting skills were a bit off that day so we didn’t manage to hit anyone except our last target where we had a direct hit. Tom and me found it so funny that we just rolled around laughing hysterically, that was until we heard the front door bell ring, my mum opening the door and the guy we just hit angrily telling my mum someone upstairs has just shot him with a gun. Let’s just say the laughter suddenly stopped. Luckily we didn’t injure the guy much and with a bit of convincing from my mum he realised we were just silly kids and didn’t take things further, otherwise me and Tom could have been in BIG trouble. As for the gun it was never seen again...!!! Or was it…??? Whenever Tom and me got bored we just started doing very random things, like the time we decided to climb over the fence to the allotments at the back of my aunts garden to help ourselves to a few apples and blackberries. Did we get caught, yes we did, did we get marched out by a little old man, yes we did. Then there was the time when at the age of fourteen we somehow managed to buy fireworks and rockets and had our own Saturday afternoon fireworks party in my aunts garden. I won’t go in to too much detail except that we decided to carry out a few experiments like, what would happen if we put a firework in a half filled paint pot with the lid closed.? How high up can a rocket go with a small bucket attached to it.? What would happen if we taped a couple of fireworks to a rocket.? and so on... I think we rolled our luck that day because I’m amazed that we didn’t damage anything or accidentally start a fire…!!! When we were a bit older we loved going down to Camden market and the West End where we would always pop in to HMV, mainly it was to see if Prince had released any new music because as anyone who knew Tom, knows what a huge Prince fan he was, I was a big fan too and remember how excited we both were when we went to our first ever Prince concert together. It was just Tom and me. It was a brilliant night and I’m so happy to have shared that moment with him. We had so many other great times together throughout our lives but it was those early years that I spent with Tom that were very special to me and that I will always cherish so much. There is a big void in our lives now that Tom is no longer here but Tom’s legacy lives on, not only in our thoughts but in his beautiful boy Rafi. It is such an honour that Tom and Nina chose me and Andreas to be Godfathers. I see so much of Tom in Rafi and when he is a little older I will make sure he knows just how great, inspirational, funny and brilliant Tom was. Tom I am so grateful that I shared some of the best moments and memorable times in my life with you. Memories that I will never forget and always look back on with a big smile. You touched the lives of everyone, especially mine. You will always be in all our hearts and minds. Love you, miss you T.
It was from a young age that me and my cousin Tom formed a strong bond. We were close throughout our lives but it was when we were kids, especially during our early teenage years that we grew to be the best of friends. We’d meet up practically every Saturday and we always got up to so much. We were always out and about and would always be doing something different each week. If we weren’t hanging around in the park we were either ice skating, playing pool, playing tennis, one touch football, badminton or swimming. Sometimes we’d go and play golf at the New River sports centre and on one occasion we thought it was more fun sliding along on the damp greens, wrecking most of them. We also went to the cinema a lot and occasionally after we’d watched our film we would casually wonder into another screen to see what was playing and somehow end up watching that film too..!! We also spent a lot of time and all of our pocket money playing arcade games in the arcade round the corner from my mums, we were only eleven at the time and way too young to be there so it wasn’t long before we got rumbled, not just once but twice we got caught out by my dad who embarrassingly dragged us out by our ears, that said we still carried on going...!! Another regular routine we had was going for lunch to the local Wimpy restaurant where we would always sit at the same two seater table, the owner got to know us well and started reserving the table for us and would give us a strawberry milkshake on the house, we loved that. I won’t say we were naughty more mischievous, Tom a little more than me. One time when we were about 12 maybe 13 Tom came round and brought his new air pellet gun with him. We started off by shooting at targets in the garden but we soon got bored with that so without thinking of the consequences we stupidly decided to go up to my room and start shooting at passing cars. We managed to hit a couple and even managed to get one driver to stop and get out of his car to check his windscreen which we thought was really funny, this should really have been our cue to stop but no because (and I’m pretty sure it was more Tom’s idea) we stupidly decided to take it a step further and decided to start shooting at people walking by. Crazy now thinking back, but we did take health and safety seriously because we were only going to aim at the lower half of the body. Luckily our shooting skills were a bit off that day so we didn’t manage to hit anyone except our last target where we had a direct hit. Tom and me found it so funny that we just rolled around laughing hysterically, that was until we heard the front door bell ring, my mum opening the door and the guy we just hit angrily telling my mum someone upstairs has just shot him with a gun. Let’s just say the laughter suddenly stopped. Luckily we didn’t injure the guy much and with a bit of convincing from my mum he realised we were just silly kids and didn’t take things further, otherwise me and Tom could have been in BIG trouble. As for the gun it was never seen again...!!! Or was it…??? Whenever Tom and me got bored we just started doing very random things, like the time we decided to climb over the fence to the allotments at the back of my aunts garden to help ourselves to a few apples and blackberries. Did we get caught, yes we did, did we get marched out by a little old man, yes we did. Then there was the time when at the age of fourteen we somehow managed to buy fireworks and rockets and had our own Saturday afternoon fireworks party in my aunts garden. I won’t go in to too much detail except that we decided to carry out a few experiments like, what would happen if we put a firework in a half filled paint pot with the lid closed.? How high up can a rocket go with a small bucket attached to it.? What would happen if we taped a couple of fireworks to a rocket.? and so on... I think we rolled our luck that day because I’m amazed that we didn’t damage anything or accidentally start a fire…!!! When we were a bit older we loved going down to Camden market and the West End where we would always pop in to HMV, mainly it was to see if Prince had released any new music because as anyone who knew Tom, knows what a huge Prince fan he was, I was a big fan too and remember how excited we both were when we went to our first ever Prince concert together. It was just Tom and me. It was a brilliant night and I’m so happy to have shared that moment with him. We had so many other great times together throughout our lives but it was those early years that I spent with Tom that were very special to me and that I will always cherish so much. There is a big void in our lives now that Tom is no longer here but Tom’s legacy lives on, not only in our thoughts but in his beautiful boy Rafi. It is such an honour that Tom and Nina chose me and Andreas to be Godfathers. I see so much of Tom in Rafi and when he is a little older I will make sure he knows just how great, inspirational, funny and brilliant Tom was. Tom I am so grateful that I shared some of the best moments and memorable times in my life with you. Memories that I will never forget and always look back on with a big smile. You touched the lives of everyone, especially mine. You will always be in all our hearts and minds. Love you, miss you T.
