30/08/2025
Today marks the 3rd anniversary of our friend Dean's passing.
My mind has been much on a recent obituary I wrote, that of John Winslade, an academic and narrative therapist who challenged traditional grief models that demand we say some sort of permanent "goodbye" to those we loved who have died.
Winslade knew, as many of us do, that human psychology doesn't work like that. Family and friends of significance in our lives sustain a presence long after their physical demise. With someone as special as Dean, his wit, his intelligence, his insights and pithy remarks, his art, his poetry, his music, all leave much more than a trace behind. Barely a week goes by that I don't think of him and I'm certain that that is true for a great many others, not least his wife and sons, whose loss can be but imagined.
Here's a photograph that I am struggling to accurately date. It looks like it was taken at one of the 164 Cambridge Rd Guy Fawkes parties (1997-2005) but efforts to confirm as much through an examination of age and apparel have proven inconclusive.
Perhaps it is not a great one of any of us. It's significance - for me, at least - lies in the fact that a portion of former flat mats are grouped together. Missing are Richard Campbell, Huw O'Connor and Dan Looker, amongst others but here are some of the folk who lived on Cambridge Rd in the late 1990s and early 2000s: Simon Campbell, Dannii Vallely, yours truly, Dean Ballinger, Andrew Joblin.
Dr. Ballinger checks in with a semi-ironic peace sign, hovering at my shoulder. Would it be too fanciful to suggest that, from time to time, he still does?
