A Dream Premonition in a Life Less Ordinary

                  CHAPTER ONE

                  FOOTPRINTS

Today, Monday the 15^th of May 2006 should have been a celebration for Stuart Duncan Howitt’s 64^th birthday.  Born the same year as that world famous, hugely talented son of Liverpool, Paul McCartney, Stu Howitt went to the same school, as John Lennon, Quarry Bank Grammar.  Stu Howitt was in the same league as John Lennon and Paul McCartney, in every sense of the word, they were his peers.

            The first born to Olive and Joseph Howitt in 1942, in the Walton suburb of Liverpool.  Stu was twelve years older than his younger brother Andrew, and fifteen years older than their baby brother Jonathan Howitt, and their mum’s great pride and joy, especially Stuart, being an only child for twelve years.  Stu Howitt was to become “The Great Love of my Life” some twenty six years later in Liverpool, in January 1968.

Stu was seven years older than me and astrologically speaking we were the perfect personality match, both of us being born under Earth, Sun signs, of Taurus and Virgo with compatibility numerological life path numbers in harmony.  Stu’s memory is still so fresh in my mind’s eye, so vivid, some thirty-eight years later.

            I was eighteen when I first met this charismatic of champions of the car-racing circuit and champion water-skier.  There is no doubt in my mind that Stu would go on to become world champion.  That’s who he was.  His memory and impact on my life haunt me still, and will no doubt continue to affect me for the rest of my life.  “The Love of my Life,” a love so deep, buried deep down inside of me forever!!  Sometimes in life we are blessed with a rare opportunity to meet the most unique and charismatic of individuals, who cross our paths so briefly like “Footprints in the Sand.” Washed away with the oncoming tide, lost forever but who remain imprinted on our hearts and minds for eternity.

            I have yet to meet someone to compare with his greatness and serene, gentle affectionate nature, even all these years later. Stu was pure platinum who could easily have outshone the most sophisticated, glamorous, Golden Boys of the sixties without even trying, and he did!  There was a great abundance of extraordinarily talented, good-looking boys around on the music scene, in films and in the world of sport at that time throughout the country, as well as in my home town, but especially in Liverpool in 1968.  Paul McCartney, The Searchers, Billy J Kramer, and in the world of sport George Best, half of the Everton Football Club, Colin Harvey.  Not forgetting the actors Terence Stamp, Albert Finney and Michael Caine.  The list was endless all over the country as the swinging sixties progressed.