I am very fortunate to have friends and people around me who are caring and loving.  This friendship extended to Robert as well.  Everyone adored him and he was respectful to everybody.  

 

His Auntie Bea and Uncle Dan were very special in his life, even before he was born, and Robo, as he was affectionately called, loved them.   

Rob and their children, Kwaku and Diane were close, and we spent many days with them at their home in Slough, Berkshire.  

 

His Aunties, Eileen, Shirley, (his god mother) and Joan doted on him from infancy. Their children Sean, and Shelly were great friends too.   

 

 

When Robert stared Secondary school, he met and befriended a student in the same year called Noble, from Ghana.  They would come home together, from school to have tea, and the pair would do the same with Noble’s mum, auntie Florence.   

They too lived in Battersea, not far from us and we planned to meet to get to know each other.    

 

 

One day, Rob seemed excited when he returned from his visit and said: “Mum, I met another auntie, a friend, of Noble’s mum!”  And I soon as she saw me, she exclaimed! “Ah! “Are you not sister Elizabeth’s son?” “What is your mum’s name?”  Rob told her.   

“You look just like her, she was Afriyie!” (I was now Flatteau). “I was Helena Anto, (Auntie), tell your mum!” She added.  

What a coincidence, “I would love to meet them!” I said excitedly.  

 

We arranged to meet at Noble’s mum’s flat.  It took us ‘mums’ back twenty odd years, when we were training at the Nurses Training College, (NTC), at the Central Hospital Kumasi (KATH), in the late 1950’s, also remembering Noble’s mum as Florence Teye-Nyakyi.  

It was incredible, to meet through our children after all those years. A small world indeed.  We were very happy.   

 

Robert, Noble and Richard, Helena’s son, became inseparable.  They were a few weeks in years, almost the same age, and I dubbed them the “Three Musketeers.” 

 

Rob was in Ghana in 2011, when Richard, very tragically died.  We were all devastated.  Robert returned to England, in February, for the funeral.   

Little did we know, that would be his last journey to his beloved Ghana and Prampram.   

Rob was in poor health, and he died in July the same year.    

We have grown in strength and unity and have supported one another.   

“Time certainly is not the best healer to my mind.  But one learns to live with the situation” 

 

“Life goes on!” 

“The grace of God is sufficient for us!” 

 

+May their souls rest in perfect peace+