On Saturday morning I woke up to read the horrible news via Facebook, that Neil had died in a motorcycle accident in his town in Thailand. I made a few frantic calls to Thailand to confirm the news and was left in shock when I was told what happened. I then had to make the most difficult phone calls of my life as I called to England, Thailand again and Australia to break the news to other people. On Saturday I had a very difficult time accepting the reality, but come Sunday it sunk in and I wept my eyes out as I wrote my small tribute to him on Facebook.
Now I want to write a full tribute to him, the party mad, beer swilling, West Ham loving hurricane that was Neil Beeson.
I spent 4 years living with Neil in Plymouth and to put it simply he was never easy to live with. This wasn't neccesarily a bad thing, he was never dull. He always wanted to party or at least have a good time, which usually involved several cans of lager and possibly some Vodka Red Bull depending on what day of the week it was.
I actually cannot recall when I met him for the first time. I lived with me in my house of 33 people in Plymouth and for the first couple of weeks, we could not work out if it was him or his then girlfriend that was living in the house. Finally, he appeared for the pool night and promptly hustled (or fluked) his way to all the money bonding with us in the process over our shared love of the Football Manager video game series.
Over the next 5 years, we spent 4 years living them together, doing not a lot except playing video games, chatting about nothing in particular, partying at the Students Union and making ill advised attempts to pick up women well above our average.
It was during this time that he some of my fondest memories were (of anyone) were created. The ridiculous and the impossible were never beyond him, such as the time he was drunk off his ass and suggested that we should take the ferry over to France and sleep on the beach, failing to understand that Northern France was not the tropical paradise he seemed to think it was in the middle of March. It was then that he declared his hatred of history films set in the past, that he told our Spanish housemate that West Ham were just as good as Sevilla, revealed that he had never listened to Led Zeppelin and walked in on me and my then girlfriend and was forced to flash her to make up for the incident.
After living in Bristol for about a year, he was quite unhappy with his job and predicament and so we both decided to become teachers in the Far East. It was his suggestion to go and to the training course in Thailand and it was here that he passed from being an eccentric to a living legend. When we landed in Chiang Mai we passed out for about 8 hours and then went out and got ourselves slaughtered and threw up in the bathrooms later that nights. The next day we were due to to start our training course at 9am and when I tried to wake him up he took a swing at me and told me where I could shove it. This was Neil, the only thing he loved more than partying was sleeping, no one ever took it personally, it was just Neil.
It was there in Thailand that he decided one night to sleep in the corridor (because he refused to share the same room with a fully dressed sleeping couple) and then wondered the halls in his underwear looking for water, strolling into the kitchen were dozens of Thais had their breakfast. One night he even bashed his head on a stage, knocked himself out and carried on and only the next day suffered the concussion.
On our infamous weekend in Ko Samet he dissapeared for the best part of the weekend after being punched in the face by a Thai bar girl and only saw daylight for the best part of two hours. We all had to nearly leave without him because nobody knew where he was and the boat was due to leave. (Those who were there on the weekend later found out exactly what he was getting up to.)
Thailand truly became his home. There he could live the life he always dreamed of, be the king he always he wanted to be and most importantly sleep as much as he liked. I was then so happy to hear that he had settled down, got himself a solid loving girlfriend and some consistency in his life. It was a surprise to me, but he had well and truly found happiness in his life.
I was planning to fly out from Korea to Thailand over Christmas and visit in him in our old town. I wanted to see this life that he had adopted, but most of all just see my friend.
Rest In Peace my friend. The world will be quieter without you but it won't be nearly as happy a place.
I will never forget you.
Below are the pictures of the four Neils. Friend, sportsman, narcoleptic and party animal.
that was so sweet. my favorite part is the night you got to Thailand. xoxo
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