It’s funny how friendships evolve as we get older. Some quietly fizzle out, others become more distant, while a precious few remain wonderfully consistent.

Those are often the friendships where people evolve at roughly the same pace. I once read that if you still have exactly the same opinions and life skills at 60 as you did at 30, you’ve probably wasted 30 years. It’s a bit harsh, perhaps, but there is definitely something in it.

We all know people who appear to have become marooned somewhere in the 1980s or 1990s, still insisting everything was better back then. Everyone enjoys a bit of nostalgia, of course, but too much of it can leave you permanently sitting in a pub that closed in 1994, complaining that nobody makes music properly anymore and summers were always hot.

Then there are people who keep moving with the times without losing the qualities that made you like them in the first place. They remain kind, interested, funny and completely unassuming. They treat people with the same warmth and consistency throughout their lives.

Derek Watson was one of those people.

A Friend to So Many

There will be a huge number of people mourning Derek’s sudden death. Many knew him better than I did, and many had known him longer. His closest network of friends goes back decades, and they will be feeling his absence in ways that are difficult to comprehend.

That is important to say, because Derek didn’t belong to one friendship group, one period of his life or one collection of stories. He seemed to gather people as he went along, and he left an impression on almost everyone fortunate enough to spend time with him. Mainly as quite simply, ‘a good bloke’.

He was one of those friends where you simply picked up from where you left off. It didn’t matter whether you had seen him the previous week or not for two years. Within minutes, you would be chatting and laughing raucously about football, music, family, politics or some complete load of old bollocks that had somehow become extremely important.

I think I first met Del around 1984, when he was playing football for Sporting Baughurst. He would have been about 21 and I was around 17. I can remember him getting a hideous broken leg that ended his amateur career, which pretty awful as he was a good footballer.

People who were a few years older seemed much older back then, but my elder brothers knew Del and many of his friends, so I gradually became part of the wider crowd. The early days were Reading matches, 18th and 21st birthdays, engagements, weddings and countless nights at the Rec Soc.

Reading, Blackpool and the Usual Disappointment

I went to Reading matches with Del, Cudsy, Stewart, Cunni, Mellor, Hutch, Twiggy Alan Kettle-White, Dave Lucas and many others. We were there during the record-breaking run in 1985, and at a Christmas game in Blackpool that was both frightening and very funny, which is often the way with football trips remembered decades later. At one stage Del had a blue & white minibus we called the royal bus.

During the 90s, there were stag weekends, weddings, play-off finals at Wembley and trips to Newquay, Bournemouth and Blackpool. We attended each other’s weddings and watched Reading repeatedly find inventive new ways to break our hearts.

As I recall, Del was with us at every play-off final. We lost the lot. The last being in 2017 when Del fell to sleep in the stadium during a mind numbing 0-0 draw.

During the noughties we enjoyed Reading’s rare excursions into top-flight football with Stewart, Dave Beattie, Mark Tyler, Paul Baverstock, Chris Dale and Simon Hutchins. Going to a Reading match will never feel quite the same again. There will always be a space where Del should be, quietly observing everything before delivering a perfectly timed comment that made the whole day worthwhile, even when the football didn’t.

Which, being Reading, was quite often.

Never Stuck in the Past

Del had a vast knowledge of football, cricket and, above all, music.

I remember him asking whether I had heard Fairytale of New York when it first came out n 1987. I hadn’t, and he confidently told me it would become one of the greatest Christmas songs ever recorded.

Good call, Del.

Through a Facebook music group we both belonged to, he introduced me to countless artists I had never properly explored. Joy Division, Sisters of Mercy, Bob Vylan, Sleaford Mods, Viagra Boys and many more.

He loved The Clash, The Damned, the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, but he never became one of those people who decided music had ended when they turned 25. He remained curious. He wanted to know what was new, what was interesting and what other people were listening to.

That curiosity extended beyond music. Del was interested in people and what they had to say. It is an underrated quality, because many people are only waiting for you to stop talking so they can start again. Del actually listened.

Cricket Sightings

Occasionally, he would surprise me by wandering along to watch Oakley Cricket Club, particularly when we were playing AWE, where a good friend of his was captain.

I would spot this familiar figure shuffling towards me and initially wonder whether it really was him. Then I would realise it was, and a huge smile would appear on my face.

That was the effect Derek had. You were always pleased to see him. There was never a moment when you thought, “Oh Christ, here comes Del.”

It was always, “Brilliant, Del’s here.”

We would have a pint, talk cricket and football, and laugh about whatever nonsense happened to be unfolding around us.

Every now and then, he would also call out of the blue and ask whether I fancied going to a gig. The last one was a Clash tribute band a year or two ago, where several old faces appeared. Before that, it was Sleaford Mods, just the two of us.

We got pissed, despite that not being the intention.

It was a great night.

A Proper Family Man

Above everything else, Del was a devoted family man.

He adored Carolyn, Ben and Emma. He shared the joyful moments of family life and dealt with the difficult ones with the same loyalty, humour and quiet strength he brought to everything else.

Those closest to him will face desperately difficult weeks and months ahead. They have not only lost a husband and father, but a warm-hearted, dependable and deeply loved man who was woven into the fabric of their everyday lives.

Del was solid without ever needing to tell anyone he was solid. He was kind without making a performance of kindness. He was generous, inquisitive and wonderfully funny.

He generally only disliked people who had made a genuine effort to deserve it.

Something I Didn’t Know

It was only after exchanging messages with Carolyn that I discovered how highly Del thought of me.

Apparently, he regularly read my blogs aloud to her. I looked back through old posts and realised that his likes and thumbs-up were all over them. He had been quietly encouraging me for years without ever making a fuss about it.

It may sound a little self-indulgent to mention that, particularly when so many people are grieving, but it meant more to me than I can properly express.

To discover that someone you admired and cared about also held you in high regard is incredibly moving. I was proud to think that, among the many people Derek considered good friends, I was one of them.

That is something I will always treasure.

The Laugh We Will Remember

There are countless people who knew Del for as long as I did, and many who knew him far longer. They all seem to say the same things.

Generous. Friendly. Curious. Loyal. Warm-hearted. And fucking funny.

Then there was that laugh. A great, raucous laugh where he would throw his head back, completely surrendering himself to the moment.

If I tried to name everyone who feels as though a part of their life has gone missing this week, I would inevitably leave people out. There are simply too many.

Even people who only knew Del on the edges of friendship groups have been shocked and saddened by his death. That says everything about the impact he had.

Life will not be the same without him. For Carolyn, Ben, Emma and his closest friends, the loss will always be there.

In time, the terrible sadness may gradually soften into something warmer. Stories will be told, songs will be played, football disasters will be remembered and people will laugh again at the things Del said and did.

That is how people like Derek remain with us.

Not through grand gestures or dramatic declarations, but through hundreds of ordinary moments made better simply because they were there.

Del was one of life’s genuinely good people. So many people loved him. So many people will miss him.

And I will always be proud that he regarded me as one of his friends.