Rob Scothern - a lifelong friend, Godfather to our son Guy, or as I will always remember him, El Tonto, the British Bull Fighter and more of that later! Rob was one of life's genuinely good guys. After serving the RAF for some 40 years I've met lots of people and like to think I recognize a good egg when I see one - Rob was certainly that egg. Roakie and I first met Rob in the 60s and my wife a few years before me. Indeed, my first meeting with Rob was when I was being 'checked out' to ensure I was a suitable escort for his great friend, Roakie. I'd heard lots about this man, who was one of the leaders of the gang who met regularly in The Cricketers Arms in Nottingham. Always up for a party, he had a slightly worrying trait of enjoying dressing up - something that he never grew out of! Indeed, one of Roakie's lasting memories is of Rob en-route to a party, dressed up as a Red Indian waving a plastic tomahawk out of the back window of a car and shouting to passers-by 'which way did the wagon train go?' From those early days our friendship with Rob blossomed and a measure of the man is that he travelled far and wide to visit us in all but one of the 17 homes we had while serving in the RAF. It was during these visits that as well as enjoying lots of eating and drinking we spent many hours putting the world to rights and dreaming up ideas that were going to make us our millions. One of our first money making thoughts was a pick your own fruit farm and growing Christmas trees. It was only when we sobered up the next morning and realised that Christmas came but once a year that we realised that this may not be such a great money spinning project! On another one of his visits we proudly announced that if he didn't mind on the Saturday we wanted to go into Town and put down a deposit on a new MGBGT and an electronic organ. 24 hrs later,Rob's wisdom and forsight came to the fore and we had given up on our new car and organ and put down a deposit on our first home. We paid £9,750 and were very concerned that we acted on poor information and had bought at the top of the market - how wrong we were and how right Rob was! Then there were our family Christmas's together with lots of party games, good eating and fine drinking. Will any of our families ever forget Rob's face after he tried to retieve a chocolate from and upturned bowl of flour. What I particularly liked about Rob was that as well as lots of laughs with him, he was a very straight person. He was a man of strong views who told it as it was. He enjoyed an excellent intellect and was a highly gifted liguist. When our respective families were young we enjoyed some holidays together and I'll never forget him dancing in the corridor of a train going through Germany. However, what was even funnier was seeing the other passengers faces when after they had made some disparaging comments, Rob responded in fluent German. It was on this holiday that I introduced Rob to skiing and I cannot begin to tell you what pleasure it gave me to ski with him again last year in St Gervais and to see the transformation from raw novice to a highly accomplished and totally fearless off piste skier. Roakie and I were very fortunate to spend a number of holidays in Spain with Rob and Nevenka. We particularly remember one occasion when Rob decided we should see more of the interior of his adopted Country, although in reality we spent 4 days looking at door and window arches so that Rob knew exactly what he wanted to achieve in his lastest building project in Almeria. In truth we still had a great holiday and it was at this time when he was sporting his pony tail that he earned the nickname El Tonto. It gave us lots of fun introducing him as Spain's latest British Bullfighter! Rob's research into local buildings was just typical of his determination to achieve perfection. Indeed, you only have to look at the wonderful home that Rob and Nevenka have developed in Vera to understand what I mean. The Alambra Palace as we fondly nicknamed it, is a genuine lasting testament of Rob's hard work, creative vision and relentless pursuit of perfection. Roakie and I will miss Rob massively. He was unquestionably one of our best friends. Generous to a fault, extremely loyal and just great fun to be with. We shall never forget him. Rest in Peace old friend.