My best from when I was 5 right the way through to when I left school, committed suicide last year... We were as good as brothers and inseparable for all those years.

It turned out he had to leave home after school because he had problems with his dad, so he went to South Africa, He came to visit once after that. He had changed, he was now taking Ecstacy and becoming a city slicker 'South African'. Anyway, we kept in contact by phone for a while until I decided to come to the UK for a better life.

Unfortunately I lost contact with him, in fact last I knew he had moved to Cape Town where he was working in a bar... Anyway, I managed to trace him through the web and got his Phone number and address from his father (who didn't like our bad influence on eachother). I wrote him a letter but never sent it :-(

Anyway, 2 years later I hear from his sister that he had killed himself over a girl who left him in a horrible way...

I feel terrible about this as his sister went on to say that he was a day away from getting his Visa to come to the UK and that he had asked many questions about my whereabouts and whether she had heard from me...

I feel terrible because I know, deep down, that if I had been in contact with him, I probably more than anyone else in the world had a strong enough bond with him, to pull him out of whatever he was going through, and probably would have been able to prevent it from happening...

But why didn't they give him my details??? And in hindsight, I should have sent that letter!!!

He is my dreams a lot and when he is the next day I feel terrible guilt...

Gary