Full video

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hello welcome to easy english so today

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i'm on brighton beach and i want to find

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out how the people of brighton met their

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best friend

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let's go how did you meet your best

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friend

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um we bought a house off him

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i turned up in raf larbrook which is a

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rf camp in germany the fellow i

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was replacing was in the same room

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as my now best mate uh moving about

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20 minutes they'd uh they stripped me

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naked

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and tried to shave me nuts so that's how

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that's how we met

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and that was it that was it been friends

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ever since

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that was in about 1980 about 1984 i

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suppose i got there

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i see was it was it english or german

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yeah yeah no he's english we were both

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aria firefighters at the time

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so uh yeah and we've remained uh well

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him

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there's another two fellows i was in

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germany with um the four of us

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remain sort of friends ever since really

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so yeah um

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my best friend her name's benita she

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lives in scotland

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um we met a long time ago in malaysia

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where we were both born

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and she is the sister of my first

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boyfriend ex-boyfriend

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[Laughter]

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how did you meet your best friend i met

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my best friends at school

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when i was seven in junior school

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um yeah and auntie claudia and auntie

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ellen

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and they're now my children's godparents

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um well

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one of them's mine one of them's your

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girl parent yep and

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um we've been friends forever we don't

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live anywhere near each other anymore

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so one lives in oxford and one lives in

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london

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i met my best friend vicky when i was

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eight years old

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in junior school and we have remained

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friends ever since we went to senior

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school together

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and then i got married and had children

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and she didn't she remained single

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and but we've always met up once a week

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and now i am 66 years old

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and we are still best mates and we see

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each other every week

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no really it's fantastic wow

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we've lots of support through thick and

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thin

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ups and downs of life and uh we're

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always there for each other

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how did you meet your best friend i met

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my best friend at primary school

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i was about six years of age

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we went through school together we went

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to

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junior school then as we got older

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we went our own paths our own separate

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ways

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but we kept in touch i moved down to

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live in

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this area in rottingdean and

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my friend went to live in harrogate in

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yorkshire

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but we still kept in touch we had plans

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to uh meet up regular ongoing holidays

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after our retirement

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and he died of cancer about six years

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ago now

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so all them plans went out the window

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but we still keep in touch

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with his wife to see how she is

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and we just go along from there so it

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was a great shame that he died when he

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did but

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he was a very young man when he died

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yeah but

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uh i'm afraid that he's live and can you

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tell me what his name was

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eric eric how did you meet your best

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friend

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well my best friend um i wouldn't say

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i've got just one best friend but um

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currently i've got two very good friends

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who i've known since i was about 14

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which is getting on near 60 years

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i met them both at school i met one we

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went to the same school

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using he's in a class below me he was my

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brother's best friend

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and the other chaplain met him on a bus

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um on the wage school so

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yeah and they've remained good friends

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for yeah for the last nearly 60 years

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tell me about um how you met your best

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friend

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um i met um my best friend do i give

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names yeah

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i met my best friend sandy when she

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moved into my

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area and we've now been friends for 42

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years uh

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she's a man an amazing person very

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likable

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very easy to get on with do you want to

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ask me some questions about her

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yeah go on then so um when you said she

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moved to your area how that how did you

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actually meet though

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um walking the children walking our

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babies

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okay yeah she hasn't been a lifelong

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best friend

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but from the age of mid-20s my my

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mid-20s she has been this video is

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and get ten dollars

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in lesson credits what was it about them

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that like

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did it just click or is there certain

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characteristics yeah i i think it just

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clicked and similar attitudes to a lot

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of things or

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similar likes and interests and so what

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is it about dave that like

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other than the the nut shaving that like

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sort of uh

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made you just have this close connection

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i don't know really it's uh well we had

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things in common

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we were doing the same uh we're in the

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same line of work i suppose

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we're both in the forces which is sort

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of a bit of a family in its own right i

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suppose

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uh yeah he was just a bit of a drunkard

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and so was i at

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17 18 sir she's fun

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she's fun um and she's quite insightful

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say she's really really stubborn that's

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not really

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fun she became my best friend but that's

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definitely a very strong trait

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of us and um

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yeah we sort of share some interests you

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know music and

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and you know love of dancing and

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socializing things like that and

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stopping to sort of get you out of

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sticky situations

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her stubbornness no actually drives me

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mad absolutely

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[Laughter]

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what are her character traits why is she

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such a

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good friend um she is fun

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um we like the best things together

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or you know walking and partying

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occasionally

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when we're allowed not now but um

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and we go out exploring i think that's

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been

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the best thing and since lockdown you

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know we go out together

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um into the countryside we both

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appreciate

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the peace and um

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the forest bathing i suppose you can

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call it we love the woods

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uh and we share just things that you

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know we both

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enjoy eating drinking

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and we've got lots of memories from the

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past you know so we talk about

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our memories it's so important to have a

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good friend but to have one

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of that long standing is i think quite

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unique

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hmm yeah yeah i don't know many people

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that have friends since that age from

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eight should you say

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yes wow yeah we both have the same sort

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of personality

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yeah and we just sort of like you can

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when you're at junior school you have

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your little friends

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yeah and you have your mates and there's

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some who you call

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friends but you don't really play with

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them or

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go near them but they're still friends

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but we were really

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really close yeah like every day at you

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know playtime

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yeah where's eric oh or he was saying

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where's malcolm you know and then we

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just sort of grew up that way

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and our parents and eric's parents

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mixed and got together and we just

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formed like a group well we are all

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musicians

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so we are in the same band together um

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so i play the drums

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and guys are singer and clive's a

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harmonica player

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nowadays yes and we still we kept that

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band going wow

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um and that's been a major part of

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keeping us in touch with each other

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and having a lot of fun as well oh wow

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what's your band's name

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it's called the splinters she

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compliments me

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definitely okay definitely she brings

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the best out in me

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whereas you know you meet people and you

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think oh they're lovely but then

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you just can't connect well we connected

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straight away

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but she's the not the superior one

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of the group but she does

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yes she compliments me and how often do

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you speak

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uh depending sometimes once every other

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day and

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sometimes once a month you know it just

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depends

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on what's happening and where we are and

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how how often do you speak now

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uh well he's in manchester so uh we try

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and meet up once a year

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uh we normally speak i don't know maybe

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three or four times a year i suppose

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not not not that often i suppose but but

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when you do it's like

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yeah we sort of pick up from where we

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left off really and uh

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yeah it's like we sort of haven't been

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apart for that long if you see what i

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mean because we just all

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carry on where we were so yeah

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and now you said she lives in scotland

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right she lives in scotland do you live

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on the coast i live in london actually

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okay

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yeah so then that's quite a distance so

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how do you maintain

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this friendship well luckily the zoom

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there's face time

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especially during a pandemic and uh yeah

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we

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chat a lot and text a lot things like

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that and

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i'm planning to see her soon actually

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you know since we're coming out of this

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pandemic

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you going up or she's coming down i um

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wouldn't mind going up just for a change

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of scenery

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yeah and i'm here and you stay in touch

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yes

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yeah we stay in touch um we're seeing

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each other this weekend oh really

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not you and um

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we stay in touch on the by texting

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uh and zoom and um

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uh sending emails and messages play

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dates

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and play dates dates and how frequently

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do you

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speak to each other um

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probably every week not as much as we

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used to before we all had children

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good memories great memories some some

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really good times

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i'll i'll just tell you one story okay

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yeah

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and we've been out one night uh

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and he lived his parents house

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backed onto the rochdale canal

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so we've been out for a night and we had

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a few a drink and we're going home there

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and he says i know a shortcut

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to my parents house right rochdale canal

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i know part of the canal where it's

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shallow

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so i said good because i don't want to

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walk all the way around

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so we had a few a drink we just you know

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plopped ourselves into the rochdale

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canal

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i thought it would be uncle deep and

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was up to here

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so we're so we got to wade through the

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rochdale canal

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i said eric what happened he said

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ah it was further up i remember now it

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was further up and we were absolutely i

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went to hearing water i remember

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i i mean we're just wading through

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and at the time you know

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it was funny but in the morning it was

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even more funny

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you know when we you know recollected it

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and we thought of what we'd done

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it was absolutely superb yeah thanks for

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watching this week's episode

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let me know in the comments below how

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you make your best friend and we'll see

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you next week

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bye so we complement each other i

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suppose

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we don't drink like we used to so it's

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nice to go out and not get absolutely

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hammered and just have a normal

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conversation now supposed now we're a

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lot older

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no it's five minutes are you are you not

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my best friend

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i don't think he will be for very long