it’s been a while, eh?

though we still keep in touch with text & the occasional email, we never get to sit & talk like in the old days.

those times we worked amongst the ‘be kind people’

they didn’t like you much but then they didn’t like me either.

I remember you saying: ‘you have a confidence that comes from elsewhere’

meaning i think my confidence came not from having the same opinions & politics as the be kinds.

who, as i recall well were only kind if: your belief systems aligned with theirs, you ran with the current dogma & did not ever rock their precious boat.

you were a thinker & a rejector of cant, which i felt made us friends.

which was good as working with these people i certainly needed one.

my confidence?

did come from elsewhere: growing up as a child with nobody, no authority anywhere that i could trust does that a person; you learn to trust only yourself.

essentially you listen to what people say & then watch closely what they do.

& my observation of the be kinds was not flattering, the way they dog piled on others who stepped out of line, refused to work with others with different views.

Ostracised people just wanting to earn a living please, do the job they’d been asked to do & not get caught up in the politics of who was in & who was ‘out’ that week or month.

that place where colleagues had alliances to undermine others.

ach, i recoil even now at the thought of all the nonsense.

the other thing you said: ‘you take too much responsibility’

which of course is true, see above for the why.

having no trusted person in my early life: everything that happened was mine & mine alone.

only i could get me out of the mess that i was in.

ditto working with the ‘be kinds’

it took me a couple of difficult years but i got out best as i could as i believe eventually so did you.

anyway, thank you for being a friend back then, even if you had to hide that at the time or act as if we had no kinship.

as those kinds of people will root out any ‘rotten apples’ they feel that don’t align themselves ‘properly’

hope you continue to have fun,

i’m sure we’ll catch up properly soon

Neil

©neilbenbow2026