Tony Devine EAQ.Odt
"A Tribute to Tony Devine including many reminiscences of Tony Devine and myself" Tony Devine, born 21/5/43, passed away 3/8/21. Tony was my dearest and oldest friend(of 75+years' standing). He was like"a brother from another mother"to me. We first got to know each other in the mid-1940s because we both lived in the same street, Evered Avenue, Walton. Tony and I played, together with friends of our own age, in a beautiful park close to our houses (Walton Recreational Ground), known fondly as "The Rec". In summer, we played cricket, or tried(!) to do athletics by jumping over waist-high privet hedges, or we sometimes played a so-called, make-believe fighting game, called "Japs and Commandos", as WWII had only just finished, remember? Alternatively, we would go and play on the swings or the "monkey ladders"(remember them?),which were also located in the park. In winter, football was the order of the day, with temporarily discarded pullovers or jackets placed on the floor as "goal-posts". Those were the days! It was a really idyllic childhood! Tony and I often went to the "Walton Vale Cinema"(long since demolished) on a Saturday, to watch what was on offer, usually films with Abbott and Costello, the serial called"White Eagle", or Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Often when the show was over, we would race all the way home (no mean feat, as home was about one and a half to two miles away!), pretending to be our heroes on horseback, with our coats fastened to our necks and dangling down our backs, streaming out behind us, intended to look like capes or cloaks! Regarding education, our paths often coincided.
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