I was a nurse in the early 80s.
My housemate was also a nurse, a charge nurse ( equivalent of a sister).
One day, I heard the most beautiful music coming from his room.
I asked what it was, he told me it was Maria Callas ( a gay icon, in those days).
All I knew, was that it was ethereally beautiful.
So started our relationship: we spent evening after evening, he introduced me and taught me how to read the librettos of many operas.
We would sip Tio Pepe, I grew to love him, and he me, I think.
We went to the South Bank and to Heaven ( a gay night club in Leicester Square ).
He became a confidante, we could tell each other everything...or so I thought.
One day he told me he was going home ( to Staffordshire) to look after his mother, who was dying.
It was actually he, who was dying.
He never told me, and I phoned him a few times, until, a few weeks after he'd left London, I phoned. His father picked up the phone. I asked to speak to him and was told, "He's died".
He was one of the "Disappeared". One who "went home".
I was in my early 20s. I'm now in my 50s. I have never forgotton him,
I managed to find his resting place, a few years ago, through the Freedom on Information Act.
DH and I went up there.
It was a funny twist, that he was buried in the graveyard of the church my father was incumbent in ( I was only 1 when we left Staffordshire for East London).
I still cannot listen to " Lucia Da L'Mammour" without weeping.
He was my dear, dear friend, he changed my life and outlook, he introduced me to opera, and we had such larks.
RIP Chris.