I have wonderful memories of our Danny. He was such a sweet and kind gentleman, and always had time to spend with us when we were little. We had lots of fun and heaps of laughter with him at his home in ‘Hope Hill’ during school holidays and at our place in Brydone.
One time at his place after we finished our breakfast, Danny had a few little blocks of cheese on his plate. He had his eyes closed, probably half closed, so we took one of his pieces of cheese, ate it and said nothing, then he gave one of us a big tickle.
What would really make my day is when he’d take us up the street to the shops and we stopped at the dairy where Danny would let me choose a selection of the sweets I wanted. Sometimes he would buy us chocolate fish or icecreams.
One summer time at Brydone Danny stayed with us. He had a walking stick. Anne, Fairlie and I would play and hide in the long grass in the paddock. He would pretend to shoot us with his walking stick. We all made sure when we’d stand up to hide again before he could shoot us. It was lots of fun.
Before Danny was leaving to go back home to Dunedin, I had all my toy Doctor things in the room. Fairlie and I were playing doctor and Danny came along and pretended to be a patient. We asked him to sit down and we listened to his heart with my toy stethoscope and all sorts of things. When we finished he gave us some money for the check-up. I was quite surprised and had not expected that. I was grateful as to me 20c was a lot of money! When I got older, about 8, 9, 10 years old, Eleanor and I stayed at Danny’s during school holidays. Danny and I played checkers together, also Anne and I stayed with him as well.
After he was gone to heaven, I was saddened by his death. I miss him sorely and have never forgotten him and his sweet nature. Four years before his passing, Danny wrote me a letter with dried flowers in it. I kept his letter close to my heart while growing up. A few years ago I decided to read the letter again but it wasn’t in the box where it was supposed to be. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find it, and was very sad. I thought my two teddybears Amy and Ruby (my two dogs) may have chewed it while I was not looking. They have a habit of chewing any paper and tissues they can find!!
Then that night I took out my old school stuff, photos, etc to organise my funeral. Finally I found Danny’s letter, it brought tears to my eyes. I was so happy that I found it. I’m going to take it with me to see Danny again in heaven one day.
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