When I came back to England for a holiday in 1996 mainly because my mother had died and I had to sort out a few problems with the rest of the family, we had a small reunion with some of the boys we grew up with. We had it at the Windjammer Pub at the bottom of May Avenue, there was Reggie, My wife and I, Nobby Gubb and his wife, Harry Court and his wife, Lennie Hooker and another married couple from Canvey (Trevor and Ces) who are friends of Harry.
I called in to visit Reggie and we drove over to Basildon to see Lennie and had our photo taken and in the evening we all went to the Windjammer.
Now Lennie, who did not look all that well when he arrived by cab, was a real piss artist but had only one beer and
Complained about stomach pains, he looked crook all night and before the end he said he did not feel well and was going home.
We called him a cab gave him the fare and told him that if he felt ill in the morning to go to the doctors, on the way home he told the cab driver to take him straight to the hospital where he was admitted and died that night.
Now the sad thing was the next morning after the reunion we left on a 21 day tour of Europe and did not know of Lennie’s death and of course missed his funeral. I was gutted to say the least.