Anthony Reader

To Anthony's Family,

Only just learned that Anthony died last year and I'm very sorry to hear the news. I had always intended in the back of my mind to look him up in the not too distant future, but his passing away sadly prevents that ever happening now. Tony was a very good friend throughout my secondary school years and for a year or two I considered him my best friend. One crystal clear memory I have is that when we first became friends in our first year at Fairwater Comp, we exchanged telephone numbers - mine was Cwmbran 62968, his was 62969!

I recall him as a loyal mate who always remembered and looked out for his friends. Once-a-friend, always-a-friend would be a good way to sum him up. I have very fond memories of sitting at the back of our registration class at school sharing jokes, talking about TV, Top of the Pops, girls and generally ribbing each other about our hair, acne etc. We usually sat in a group of five or six: Tony, me, Andrew Jones, David Stiles, Dai Egan and sometimes Richard Berry.

After we left school I moved away, but came back occasionally to vist family. On one occasion, in the Horse and Jockey inn, I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned round and was greeted with, "Alright Mark. How's it going?" I hadn't seen Tony since our school years but it didn't take long before we struck up a conversation that lasted the rest of the evening.

I also remember bumping into him when he was thumbing a lift to work at GKN one morning. He got in the car and told me he was really unhappy with his job and asked me if I could help him with finding work. It resulted him coming to cut trees with me in the Cotswolds and eventually to have a go at planting trees in the West of Scotland. He didn't last long at tree planting (to be fair it was b----y tough) and he slipped off back to Wales quietly without me knowing. (I would imagine that he recounted those adventures to the people who knew him.) He gave the job a good go over two weeks, but he was a Cwmbran boy at heart and it was plain and only right that he wasn't going to leave his Welsh roots for something he wasn't enjoying. I remember him telling me one morning at the end of the second week that he wasn't coming to work that day. It was the last time I saw him. We were both twenty at the time. When I returned after work to the caravan we were staying in (Muasdale, Kintyre) there was a note saying, "Thanks for finding me the work, but I'm going home to Cwmbran". I was sorry to see him leave and even sorrier that I never looked him up again in the future. I never held any grudges and hope that he never held any against me.

The attached photo is the only picture of Tony that I have. It was taken in the middle of a Cotswolds wood! We were living in the right-hand caravan in the background. The weather was extremely cold and we were unable to do much work because the snow was covering the fallen trees I was instructed to cut up and stack. I lived a very tough life working in forestry for about six years and Tony got a bit of a taste of it when he came and had a go.

I did have other pictures of him on that job and in Scotland but have since lost them. We had only had two weeks to complete the work in the Cotswolds (the weather ruined any chance of that happening) before I went to do a six week City and Guilds Forestry course in Cumbria. When I got back from Cumbria, I phoned the sawmill manager who informed me that he would take me back but wasn't interested in Tony. My reply was that if he couldn't employ my friend he could stuff his job. I then found a job on the west coast of Scotland where I'd spent eighteen months previously and Tony came with me. It's a long time ago now and a lot of water has passed under the bridge in my life as I presume it did for Tony too, but I remember our times together with great fondness.

I'd just like to end by wishing all hs family the very best for the future and to say that he will always have a happy place in my memories.

Tony was a dear friend. Rest in peace old mate.

Mark Halliday