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Old 10-11-07, 06:53 AM   #68
horsa
Pacific Aces Dev Team
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Halifax, England
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Bram Zeegers …. Better know to us all as simply Abraham.

By an accident of fate I probably spent a lot of time with Bram on the Holland Subsim meet in 2005. It wasn’t planned and neither of us particularly sought out the other. I shared his car on the day we visited the Dykes. He asked me to create a new avatar for him and he posed for some shots on a ferry one day. My last lunch in Monnikendam was also spent with him, before he drove me to the airport. You could say I got to know him fairly well. But then again, how much can you really learn about someone in a short snapshot like that. You meet, you discus, you move on. Certainly nothing at the time hinted at the kind of ugly scenario we now see in the Dutch newspapers. Reflecting on that trip there were some clues that Bram might have moved at a high level. He was clearly a remarkably articulate and intelligent man. When asked what he did for a living he made reference to training as a solicitor and spoke of being an “estate agent”. How significant those words seem now.

We shared an interest in history and I took great pleasure in being able to throw a question at him and then just listen to the answer unfold . You learnt to choose your own words carefully because he clearly had the knowledge base to quickly peel away your arguments, albeit in a most respectful and good humoured way.
Its eerie seeing that photograph now.. Aren’t we just a bunch of ordinary folk who share a common interest in naval warfare ? Then you wake up and there is that playful photograph in the context of a world I will never experience or would never want to. Within it all there is a story we can only guess at. Did Bram pay the price for an act of bravery? The pressures he must have been under ? Was it suicide, murder accident ?

What price now to be able to ask Bram some questions ?

Rest in Peace, Bram. I only wish I’d taken more time.

Last edited by horsa; 10-11-07 at 05:33 PM.
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