I was very sorry to hear the news about Gordon. I’m afraid I haven’t kept in touch since the time in the flat in Edinburgh with George and Hamish around 40 years ago. I have set down some memories triggered by the sad news.

The memorial picture was a surprise and a delight. Just like, but not the same as, his dad. Mr Peters had an allotment (we called them plots) just off the end of Deeside terrace. The street was a dead end and our house was one of those at the end. To get to the plots Mr Peters walked up our driveway and over the fence at the end. I remember him in the evenings going over to work on the plot and coming back with baskets of vegetables. His plot was beautifully kept as was his garden and greenhouse. Gordon told me that his dad regularly won first prize for his Chrysanthemums at the Post Office gardening club show.

I first met Gordon when he and I were about nine years old, when I moved with my parents and sister to Deeside terrace. Gordon’s family had been in the street for three or four years before this. The comments about Gordon from his colleagues and friends chime with the Gordon I remember through primary school, secondary school, university and later in the flat in Easter Road in Edinburgh. He was always kind, reliable, thoughtful and straightforward.

We were the same age, were in the same class in primary school and went to school and came home together. The school was a fair distance and we mainly took the bus. On fine days, at Gordon’s suggestion, we could save the penny by walking home and use it to buy a penny pandrop in the sweetshop in Mannofield. Penny pandrops were huge and lasted ages.

I’m not sure if a nine year old can be described as a mentor to another nine year old, but it is fair to say that Gordon helped me a great deal to settle in to my new school. He knew the rules and how things were done in the class and, having a strong sense of responsibility would have been embarrassed if I had done something wrong through ignorance. We had a very scary teacher – Miss Muirison – who took the class for the two years leading up to the 11 plus. We sat in double desks in rows set out in four columns facing the teacher. She operated a points system of rewards for work and behaviour. On a Friday afternoon you added up your points for the week and the person next to you checked your addition. You were then moved to the desk which reflected your position in the class for that week. The top four in the class got the double desk at the back of a column to themselves for that week. Gordon, who was both clever and diligent, was regularly first or second in the class.

I remember playing at Gordon’s house much more than I remember him playing at mine. The house radiated calm and order. The memories which stand out are – toy racing cars, (dinky I think) which Gordon would carefully take out of their boxes and equally carefully put away after we had finished playing with them; - the board game Scoop, with Gordon reading out the silly stories on the playing cards; the Hornby Double O model railway. I remember playing with this on the carpet in the Peters’ front room. There was a transformer in a wooden box with a loose lid and I remember Gordon telling me solemnly to be very careful because the electrics inside were dangerous. I think this must have been when we were quite young and before they floored the loft and installed what became a large, spectacular model railway layout.

We were both in the Mannofield church Lifeboys – a Church of Scotland youth group a bit like the cubs or scouts. We both became troop leaders and led the marching displays in the church hall. I remember us walking back from meetings in the dark alternately walking and running between the lamp posts to get along more quickly. A standout memory from this time is a day trip the Lifeboys took by aeroplane to Edinburgh, the highlight of which was a visit to the zoo. I have attached a couple of pictures. One of us in our lifeboy uniforms – Gordon and I are kneeling in the front; and the group photo for the Edinburgh trip showing the aeroplane we went in – Gordon and I are standing on the front right of the picture as you look at it.

At Aberdeen Grammar School (then a boy’s school) Gordon and I were in different classes. We took the bus to school together in the morning but developed separate interests and different after school activities. We were both in the choir. I remember on a trip to Bavaria with the choir, walking through Munich with Gordon eating cherries for refreshment. In our mid teens we went together to Madam Murray’s dancing class on Saturday evenings dressed up in our sports jackets and flannels. At the class we were taught some ballroom dances and tried to learn how to talk to girls. When he was in his late teens Gordon played trumpet in Madam Murray’s dance band.

Duncan