A  FLASHBACK  TO  THE  SIXTIES!! THE BERNARD-BRUCE ERA. I joined The Southern Life Assciation in December 1971.  One of my colleagues was a chap called Bruce Gordon - he had at one time been rhythm-guitarist for a well-known local group called "McCully's Workshop". By this time I had sold my Spanish guitar but it wasn't long and I was borrowing another one and would often bring it to work where Bruce and I played during lunch times.  Bruce had not done any serious playing for a year or more but was still able to teach me quite a bit!!  He left the Company around 1975 and I eventually lost contact with him as he had re-located several times and had not stayed in touch. Any grandiose ideas I might still have had of taking my guitar playing to the next level ended on 8th December 1975 when I chopped off the first digit of my right index finger in the engine of my car!! One evening some time around the early 1990s I bumped into Bruce at the Standard Bank ATM machine in Milnerton:  he told me he had married and was then living in Milnerton.  I tried to trace him in the phone directory without success. I next spoke to him over the phone one evening around mid-1996 - and could not believe that at first he could not remember me!!! Bruce had been a very talented person:  prior to his joining Southern Life he had been a draughtsman in the Air-Conditioning industry;  apart from his musical ability, he had a flair for languages - he spoke Greek fluently and was able to understand German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese - and before leaving Southern, he also embarked on learning Hebrew and Japanese;  at the same time he started Karate lessons and within a year had made astonishing progress; he could paint (watercolours and oil) and he was wonderful at sculpting out of wood and balsa-wood; he was also a great mimic - in my opinion far greater than Peter Sellers, who was so popular in those days!! In July 2003 I managed to trace Bruce - earlier that year he had re-located to Johannesburg and, at my request, he kindly sent me the following pix of himself, showing how he looked around 1970 with "McCully's Workshop" (in the last photo Bruce is far right): Back To Home Page (format is mm/dd/yyyy)