“We bonded over the jump-leads, you could say”

WE got to know our 20-year-old neighbour J well before he moved up to Sligo for the surf.

Age was no obstacle to friendship, not when he lived just a stone’s throw away from us and had a car that wouldn’t start in the mornings. At least twice a week, we’d hear his car engine balk all the way down the lane, and then put itself to obstinate silence at the bottom of our drive. We bonded over the jump-leads, you could say.

Great lad. Nice to have around.