The Penair Oldies
The Penair Oldies - an introduction
Several slightly mad individuals, sometimes five or six, but more usually just four!
Neil Jones
Steve Varker
John Brinkhoff
Claire Stocker
(sometimes Simon "Min" Nicholls)
Not forgetting the always missed Kiamen Wong RIP
There's at least three Oldies in this underage drunken picture from the Paris Trip 1983
These six people met in 1980 as they all started a new secondary school - Penair School - in Truro, Cornwall. Why they stayed friends is a mystery, but the core theory I suppose was that we all got on with each other, whether as a group or just in fewer numbers.
Three of the Oldies are in this Prefects photo from 1985 but I won't say where!
Over the years they followed each other's adventures, triumphs and failures. First to leave us was the wonderful Kiamen Wong. He was the youngest of the group and most likely the most athletic. A whizz at cross country running he'd leave us all for dust! Music, like many teenagers was a passion for him and he both wrote music and played more than one instrument. But what he loved the most I feel was wheels, that is any motorised transport that could be used!
Kiamen Wong 1969 - 1986
He'd got a job after leaving school in 1985 at the British Leyland garage (Mumfords of Truro) close to his home which sadly closed soon after he joined. He transferred to Playing Place Garage near Truro soon after and he found his feet as a junior salesman.
He was good, and he was popular amongst his colleagues as well as those coming to buy cars. He even charmed my mum as well which was no mean feat! Sadly, in late October 1986 he was being driven by another salesman from the garage to a conference; they hit a car head-on on the Saltash bypass near Plymouth. The fellow salesman was killed instantly and poor Kiamen lay in a coma for over a fortnight before he succumbed to his injuries. He was just 17 and the world was a poorly place for his passing without a doubt, he'd have become a wonderful man if he'd been given the chance.
I think quite possibly this was the reason the rest of us stayed in contact. His passing affected us all greatly and while we all showed our grief for his loss in difference ways, the one thing we agreed upon was the fact we needed to support each other.
A year and a half later, my father passed away. I'm Claire Stocker in case I didn't make it clear and just as you'd imagine my friends supported me at the funeral and wake even though I requested they didn't. It was March 1988 and sadly it wasn't to be the only funeral that gelled us. Almost a year later, Neil's father passed away as well.
I'm hiding behind my Dad's arm in this 1975 photo of my family
In September 1988 Neil and I had started a fledgling business - Mercury Couriers - a delivery company based in Cornwall. He had a Renault 17TS (posh back then, look it up!) and I had a brilliant motorbike - a GSX550ES. again I suggest to reader to look this bike up as ironically this model was very short lived, no more than six years or so from memory.
Neil Jones - 1989
Mercury Couriers, Neil's Renault 17TS and Claire's Suzuki GSX550ES; both sporting red noses for the very first Red Nose Day for charity, 1988
There's four Oldies hiding in this 1988 party photo, again I'll let the reader identify where...
Neil and I forged on but our respective losses had affected us both. I left the partnership in the Autumn of 1989 and Neil bravely kept the business going for many years following my departure. I went into nursing (after a couple of false starts) and as I type this I've taken early retirement after gaining senior positions as a Deputy Ward Sister and later a Specialist Stroke Nurse. It was a difficult move when we dissolved the partnership as it led us in very different directions; although Neil eventually moved into looking after Autistic people before moving successfully into management. It was meant to be.
As for Steve, he often quite rightly points out that as the only Oldie (excluding Kiamen) who didn't go on for further education by joining the Post Office straight out of school, he's done the best! I can't disagree in many ways!
Steve Varker sporting a hairy caterpillar decoration in 1989
This is where it gets complicated. Of course we all found our ways forward very differently and friendships were maintained or waned at various points over the decades. Steve, myself, Min and even Kiamen used to socialise in the pubs of Truro from a young age. In fact Min and Neil were first responsible for my first underage drink at he Rising Sun in Truro, they were both in civvies but I was in school uniform! The then landlord steered us to a quiet corner to hide us from any questioning eyes!
Anyway, the core of the drinkers were Min, Steve and myself along with many others who have fallen by the wayside.
Much later, Steve kept his love of motorbikes and he encouraged me back to riding as well
Steve's bike (left) and my bike (right) at Lizard Point, 2017
Sadly, my bike riding days ended after a couple of falls, not on two wheels but first doing the Three Peaks Challenge (with Neil in 2017) and then working on the ward as a nurse the following year. My neck was damaged and I couldn't manage the weight of the crash helmet any longer.
But on that note, the last Oldie Challenge was that Three Peak Challenge in 2018. Neil and I were the only nutters to do this challenge; we managed Ben Nevis, Scotland and Great Britain's highest point but doing our second climb in the Lake District I head-butted a rock badly and the challenge had to be abandoned.
Neil and myself half way up Ben Nevis
A very wet Neil and Claire on top of Ben Nevis
My injury that made us abandon the climb
But what about John? John Brinkhoff is the quiet man of the group, he'd join us for a lunchtime drink when at Sixth Form and never lost contact but he maintains a quiet dignity, whereas the rest of ourselves often fall over our own feet!!
John Brinkhoff in 1989
The last person who should be mentioned is Simon "Min" Nicholls.
Min in 1989
Min was like a part-time member of the gang. He was a friend of Neil's first at school before becoming friends with me when we discovered we rode the same sort of pushbike and suffered from a similar stutter. After school he'd join us in the pubs of Truro in Cornwall and travelled with me to London to stay at my brothers place a couple of times. Later he shared a house with Neil but he was always moving apart from us. We were there for his mother's funeral and I think it was 2011 we all last saw him together. Where he is now, none of us know as his online presence is nothing, but maybe one he'd break radio silence.
So there we have it, John, Steve, Neil and myself have remained the core of the Oldies and for a long time we tried to meet up twice a year to celebrate Kiamen's life and to just have fun, telling the same jokes as we've told for the last 40+ years! But time waits for nobody, and with injuries plaguing a couple of us and moving away from Cornwall for first Neil and then myself has meant the regular Penair Oldie Challenge has had to wait in the wings for now.
The Penair Oldies at one of our last adventures together in 2016
The Penair Oldies
So these pages have been set up to celebrate my friends, my best friends, my three brothers from different mothers, whatever the description they are the best and most supportive friends anyone could want and my life has been only improved and enlightened by their presence.
Thank you boys.
The Penair Oldies
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All text and images (c) C.H.Stocker 2022 unless otherwise referenced.
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