Sam was a good friend, we met at the Tech when we were 11, alphabetically he was one before me and in the way things go we were next to each other on the first day at 'big school', as I was a weedy kinda shrimp and Sam was considerably bigger and I was the only boy from my primary school to go to the Tech I decided that if I was going to survive then finding some of the gentler giants would be a place to start. Sam took me under his wing and we remained firm friends all the way through senior school, although our lives after school went in different directions while we were still making trips up to the Wirral we did try to make time to pop in and catch up, but these things became less frequent as time went by. I lost my brother 5 years ago to the same illness, Val my heart goes out to you, so sorry. Alan