INDEX	March 28, 2015
Facebook tells me tomorrow is Caroline Mary Herman's birthday. I happen to know she won't be celebrating it. She's dead. I wonder if a growing proportion of my Facebook friends won't be celebrating their birthdays in future years? I knew Caroline quite well for many years. There was a strange intensity to her. For years, it seemed, she wrestled with a 'benign' medical condition: bravely, I guess, because she kept on working (mostly) and didn't pass on her worst fears (if she had any). Then one day I got a call from her while I was walking in Queen's Road, Walthamstow. I sat on a wall for maybe 20 minutes just listening to her. She knew she was going to die. Yet most of my memories of her are when she was forcing glasses of champagne on me or chatting over lunch in a rather good restaurant. I wish you could have a happy birthday Caroline.
INDEX Jonathan Brind		March 28, 2015