By JESSE GRAHAM
WHEN you’ve been best friends for 50 years, a few years apart don’t matter all that much.
At least, that’s the case for Healesville’s Neil Eldridge and Longwarry’s Ray Arthur, who were reunited by the Healesville RSL on Wednesday 29 June.
Mr Eldridge and Mr Arthur, both 71, met up at Healesville’s Aurrum Aged Care, where Mr Eldridge is a resident, after the team at Healesville RSL tracked him down.
The two men met 50 years ago when enrolled in the Army, on the way to training for the Vietnam War.
Mr Arthur said the two became fast friends, and were stationed together in Vung Tau during the war – after returning home, the pair kept in contact, with Mr Arthur having Mr Eldridge as best man at his wedding.
When Mr Eldridge went into care at Aurrum, Healesville RSL assistant manager Suzanne Serra said the RSL looked up Mr Arthur and got in touch.
“I found out that he wasn’t well, through Sue, and I decided to hot-foot it over here, because I had no idea,” Mr Arthur said.
He said that July marked 50 years to the day since they had met, and that they hadn’t seen each other in about eight years.
“We’re best mates – we’ve been best mates for 50 years,” Mr Arthur said.
“We only haven’t been in contact because he’s got his family, and I’ve got my family, and we live so far apart.
“We’ll always have the Army and our Army service, and our friendship’s always been there. It’s something where you’re living in each other’s pockets all the time – we might have gone 18 months before we saw each other, or even a couple of years, and then we’d organise to get together and away you go.”
After some photos with the Mail, Mr Arthur, Mr Eldridge and his family spent the morning catching up at the aged care centre.
