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An Inherited Friend
Judith Scott got in touch with the tale of how she ‘inherited’ a friend, from her father.. Judith’s father was a well-known railway modeller. His articles for magazines on the subject of a nineteenth engineer called Fox drew the attention of one Mr Newby, an engineer in his youth but now, in old age, something of a recluse. Mr Newby wrote to Judith’s father who went to visit him: the two elderly men became friends. Judith never met Mr Newby whilst her father was alive, "He had arthritis, so my father always visited him," she says, "We were always very amused when my father, a very sober man, came back a bit tiddly. He and Mr Newby used to crack open the whisky and tins of anchovies, and sit there over the newspaper cuttings." Judith’s father died shortly before his eightieth birthday. Judith wrote to Mr Newby to let him know, and met he father’s friend for the first time at the funeral. "He was courteous and gallant, and very properly dressed with his walking stick," remembers Judith. Moving away from the Harrogate area after her father’s death, Judith still kept in touch with Mr Newby, "I felt a responsibilty towards him. My father was his only friend. To my surprise he used to send Victorian type cards which he must have taken trouble to find - inside was always a newspaper cutting." There began a correspondence between the two, each of them scanning the newspapers for subjects which they thought would interest the other. Judith, already living in a Buddhist community, decided to become a Buddhist nun, "Mr Newby took it all in his stride - and was touchingly interested in me," says Judith, "Everywhere he sent cards and cuttings about anything he could find to do with Buddism." Judith was touched by his interest, "For a solitary batchelor who’d lived alone all his life, who hadn’t had much contact with women, he was sensitive, caring and sweet to me." Gradually, Mr Newby’s handwriting deteriorated. He wrote to Judith less and less. Eventually Judith received a letter from him telling her he’d been in hospital and couldn’t write anymore. Judith was now in northern China, working as a teacher with the Voluntary Service Overseas. From time to time she sent Mr Newby a card. "When I heard of his death," she says, "I was in a town on the edge of the Gobi desert. He was 92." It was the friendship with Mr Newby which had helped Judith through the grief she felt after her father died, "I think my father would have been pleased that we went on caring for each other. He wasn’t a replacement father - it was just a little mutual caring for each other, really." Have you ever acquired a friend or other relationship through someone else?
How did it happen?
Are you still in touch?
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