May 2008 - Pete's final resting place.

It has been about 8 months since Pete was cremated, since which time he has presided over a shelf in Rob's garage. Awaiting a time when enough of his old friends could or would come over to spread his ashes. For those of us who knew Pete over the last 30 years, it was with mixed feelings that we remembered him. A great friend to all, the life and soul of the pub, his party went on long after everone else had gone home. The drugs and the drink got to him and his later years were chaotic and sad. But the old Pete was still there. Even in his last days it was said that he would try to get to the pub in his wheelchair, trailing pipes and beeping equipment, and was up to a fight with anyone he took a dislike to who came within reach of his wheels. He was glad he only had cancer, because all the other people in the hospice had diseases that they could not pronounce. So off to Ireland, to the stately home of Rob and Liz, with a lawn the size of a small county, accompanied by Hilde. There, to my great joy, was the gregarious Kevin Beggin, a man who warms a room as he enters it, to entertain us with hilarious stories of the past, when we were all (in my case reasonably) young and in Amsterdam in the seventies. I did not know that Pete would be cast upon the waters of the river Sure, so my little prepared sonnet was typically not topical. I had assumed that he would be blowing in the wind from a small mountain. But since we were close to Limerick, the form of the poem is appropriate.

Some seven months after the burn,
It was asked 'What's to do with his urn?'
We'll have a fine wake,
If someone brings a rake,
Up a hill, spread him out, then return.