My Mate Barry

My Mate Barry We first became friends in the fire service, not so much on the job but more through part-time work that Barry arranged - doing contract maintenance work in Canberra and Sydney. I was 28 at the time, so that makes the friendship more than 40 years. As I progressed through the ranks, our lives diverged a bit but in later years Barry looked me up in the Netherlands and it was as though there had never been a break at all. I’m reminded of the words of a song by Harry Chapin (who was a favorite of Barry) From Let Time Go Lightly by Harry Chapin Old friends, they mean much more to me than the new friends, Cause they can see where you are, and they know where you've been . Now this was important to me because Barry knew of some of the heartbreak I had been through when having to leave the fire service - he knew where I’d been with that pain - and he came over to our place often enough that he could see what I was now doing. In 2007, I went with Barry to the World Cycl