I knew Neil about twenty years ago. I did not know him well. I did not know him badly. He had had a long and interesting life and had seen dark times, but come out the other side a positive and kind person, which if you knew his story is quite an achievement. I was in my 40s back then and he a lot older and from a different time to me. He was now happily married and settled, doing a part-time job and was one of the people to help me with work, although now he was thinking of retirement.

I was sitting in a Pattaya bar with Neil drinking a beer, and he a coke. He had long since stopped drinking the grog as he liked to call it. He had asked me about what I had done before coming to Thailand and had talked about his life. We talked about the challenges of life living away from home. It was then that he told me this story, which had happened a few years before.