THE thing I remember most is the floors; a strange sort of sooty black. Not because that’s what colour the tiles were, but from the amount of cigarette ash casually discarded as one followed another, then another.
Forget your enormous, strawberry-scented plumes of smoke, or the wee sticks that look like you’re sucking on a USB flash drive – back then Regal Kingsize was, er, king.
Twelve teenagers left Belfast on the night of our final A-level exam, the flight taking off close to midnight before touching down in Tenerife just as the sun was coming up.
For most, it was a first time abroad without parents or, for those fortunate enough to get on school trips, without teachers. And priests.
This was the summer of 1999. A full nine years before The Inbetweeners first aired, a pre-emptive tribute was played out beneath cloudless blue skies by day, along the classy Veronicas strip by night.
Busby’s, Bobby’s, Bonkers, Trax… was there a Trax? There might have been. Caribbean nights, booze cruises, foam parties - it had nothing, yet it had it all. A free shot gets you in, then it was fishbowls for a fiver; alcohol officially undetected in either.
Two weeks – that’s how long we booked for. Let that sink in. Why would anybody do that?
After three days I was ready to send up a flare. Had there been room to wave a white flag on the balcony outside, I would have. Except there wasn’t, because the balcony faced directly onto the wall of the neighbouring apartment block, approximately 30 centimetres away.
This was too much. The heat was so prohibitive that leaving the apartment wasn’t an option for most of the day. So we sat, listening to music, drinking warm tins of Dorada, smoking and letting cigarettes disintegrate on a once magnolia floor.
Holiday reps in Playa de las Americas have seen most things; nightmarish sights most of us can’t even begin to imagine. Yet I will never forget the look on our rep’s face as - following a conversation with an irate manager - she pushed her way into what was, by the midway point, more ashtray than apartment.
One of the guys in my room was Damien Ritchie.
Easy going yet up for whatever, Dee was great company, and we shared plenty of laughs during our fortnight in Shawshank.
Dee was a big lad back then - I was no Kate Moss either - but nobody was counting calories or worrying overly about weight in 1999. Mr Motivator might have tugged at your conscience the odd weekday morning but, leaping about in a multi-coloured lycra jumpsuit, his issues were clearly more pressing than ours.
Also, we were 18, dammit! Get off our case! We had our whole lives to worry about boring stuff like health and wellbeing. Now pass those crisps, and a Dorada. And a feg, actually. No I’m grand for an ashtray, thanks.
Once home, there were nights out here and there, and Dee was always the same – loving life, that warm smile and low chuckle ever-present. But when he went to university in Liverpool, we lost touch; one of the few downsides of coming from a generation when the advent of the mobile phone was in its infancy.
Last month I bumped into Dee for the first time since - on the start line of the Belfast half-marathon. This would not have been in either of our tarot cards 25 years previous.
To some, he would have been unrecognisable. Not because of the passage of time, but because Dee is no longer big. In fact, Dee is now a lean, mean running machine – a Ballynahinch Caballo Blanco, the straw campesino hat all that is missing.
Necessity brought him here, but it is something he didn’t know he had that keeps bringing him back. A hit and run accident, from which he emerged largely unscathed, saw him examined by doctors six years ago. Weighing 21 stone, and 5′7″ – “on a good day” – they did not like what they found.
Pre-diabetic, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, he felt tired all the time. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic further exacerbated an already sedentary lifestyle before, two years ago, Dee was diagnosed with type two diabetes.
With wife Lindsay, three kids – Megan (15), Logan (12) and Jax (6) – and as the sole bread-winner in the house, it was the wake-up call he needed. Previous attempts at losing weight, at changing his lifestyle, had been half-hearted.
“When you’re not really into it, you’ll always find an excuse…”
Dropping drink was the first step. It wasn’t that Dee drank heavily, but he would have had a few three or four nights a week. And with that came snacking, and feeling like crap the next day.
Next was exercise. Walking at first, then couch to 5k. He had tried before and failed; this time would be different. With a consistent diet, and consistent exercise, weight was flying off him.
Having caught the bug, Dee joined the Saintfield Striders running club and hasn’t looked back since. Six-hour marathons, the bog standard 26.2 mile marathons, halfs, 10ks, 5ks and countless parkruns; you name it, he has run it - and run it fast.
In the two years since his diagnosis, Dee has lost nine stone, and run hundreds of miles. At 43, his diabetes is in remission, and he has never felt better.
Yet, while he may look different, Dee remains the same gentle soul he always was.
In recent months he helped get a new parkrun going at the Montalto Estate outside Ballynahinch. A few Saturdays back, when parkrun celebrated its 20th anniversary, Dee swapped his Asics for the race director’s bib – welcoming entrants from near and far, all with their own reason for being there, just as he had.
This community matters to him. It’s not self-serving, it’s not for show; he is genuinely grateful for having been granted a new lease of life. Dee cheers and cajoles as runners and walkers, some with prams and dogs, complete two laps of the course - the last home every bit as worthy of his attention as the first.
Megan and Logan are there too, part of the volunteer team, helping clock times and keep things moving. They have every reason to be proud of their dad.
And just yesterday, Dee was nominated in the ‘Most Improved’ category of the People’s Running Awards, which celebrates the best in the north. From where he was two years ago, from where he was 25 years ago, that is truly something worth celebrating.
