Dennis Shallcross

Dennis came to me late in life.

The stepfather of my husband, he filled a void in my life after my own father's passing.

Dennis was not perfect, who is? But he was my friend.

Highly intelligent, I for one would not like to come up against him in a pub quiz that is for sure.

When I met my husband he used to talk about Dennis and we discovered very soon into our relationship that Dennis and my own uncle were and had been best friends for years! It is such a small world whilst Dennis was a born and bred Derbyshire lad, my husband though nomadic was born in Gosport, me in Middlesex and my uncle lived in Oxfordshire.

What I find so sad is that as a fanatic radio ham so few of all the friends he had made throughout the world will never know of his passing.
With a love of the 'old' music Dennis was an avid fan of Saga Radio and would regularly contact Sheila Tracey, bombarded the poor woman with requests for some of the most obscure recordings ever made, but she always seemed to accommodate him.

Dennis' musical taste was not restricted to the recordings of the 40's and he could put a lot to shame with his knowledge of more modern music.
Besides an interest in short wave radio Dennis took to the modern world of technology like a duck to water and spent many happy hours on his computer talking to all his friends and sometimes falling victim to shall we say 'oooooops' downloads. Two of his closest friends and I have often been called upon to 'sort it out' when the pc had a case of hiccups.

Some may have called him a rogue but to me he was just Dennis (I used to call him Dennis the Menace!) and I am going to miss him. He drove me mad when talking on messenger and half way through a really good chat he would just say "I am off now, getting a cup of tea and some cheese and biscuits" we never did finish those chats....

Oh and who has ever heard of a vegetarian who loved sausages?