Opinion: You don't stop being their youth worker

This is not the first time that I have written about the deaths of former youth club members, nor is it the first time that I have invoked the idea of youth workers as parents. But it is perhaps the first time I have felt it so deeply. I received a phone call in mid-January from a former club member, now a youth worker herself, telling me of the premature death of one of her near contemporaries.

I suppose my serious commitment to youth work started in 1979, and Ronnie was among the very first cohort I worked closely with. We were, therefore, relatively close in age, and I was perhaps more like an older brother than a parent. When he bought a small motorbike, I lent him a decent leather jacket; it saved his shoulder in his first accident and he told me later how he pleaded with the hospital staff not to cut the jacket because it did not belong to him. He talked with me about his jobs, his relationships and, as it got worse, his drinking. Not that I was able to save him from himself. Nobody was. I lost touch with him as his world gradually disintegrated. A youth work colleague of mine did, however, remain in contact with him to the very end.