Mr Brooks, Martin, Robert and Jean are being interviewed on subject of friendship.| Mr BROOKS: | I consider friendship to be one of the most important things in |
| life-whatever your status, married or single. I see too many lonely people |
| around. A lot of us get so involved with material values, family problems, |
| 'keeping up with the Joneses,' etc. , that we forget the real meaning |
| of friendship. |
| INTERVIEWER: | Which is what., according to you? |
| R BROOKS: | They say `a friend in need is a friend.indeed' which is partly true, but a |
| real friend should also be able to share your happy moments- without feeling |
| jealous. A good friendship is one where you accept and forgive faults, |
| understand moods, and don't feel hurt if a friend doesn't feel like seeing |
| you. Of course, honesty is an essential part of any reIationship. We |
| should learn to accept our friends for what they are. |
| INTERVIEWER: | As a married man, do you find your frier ships are only with other men? |
| MR BROOKS: | Of course not! Both my wife and I have m and women friends-thank goodness. |
| ALthouhg family life is fulfilling, it isn't nough! Both my wife and I get |
| tremendc satisfaction from our friends, married a single, male and |
| female-and we both ha our separate friends too. We'd get bored with each |
| other if we had the same friends! |
| INTERVIEWER: | You must have a full life. |
| MR BROOKS: | We certainly do! And as I say, our friends give us a lot of pleasure. After |
| all, friends should not be people with whom .you kill time. Real friendship, |
| in my opinion, is a 'spiritually developing' experience.(Martin, Robert and |
| Jean are being interviewed on the subject of friendship. ) |
| INTERVIEWER: | How important are friends to you, Martin? |
| MARTIN: | I've never had a lot of friends. I've never regarded them as particularly |
| important.Perhaps that's because I come from a big famil Two brothers |
| and three sisters. And lots cousins. And that's what's really important me. |
| My family. The different members of my family. If you really need help, |
| you get from your family, don't you? Well, at least that's what I've always |
| found. |
| INTERVIEWER: | What about you, Jean? |
| JEAN: | To me friendship... having friends, people I know I can really count on... |
| to me that's the most important thing in life. It's more important even than . |
| love If you love someone, you can always fall out of love again , and that |
| can leadto a lot of hurt feelings , bitterness, and so on. But a good a |
| friend is a friend for life. |
| INTERVIEWER: | And what exactly do you mean by a friend? |
| JEAN: | Well, I've alreadys said, someone you know you can count on. I suppose what I |
| really mean is... let's see, how am I going to put this . . . it's someone who |
| wili help you if you need help, who'il listen to you when you talk about you |
| problems... someone you can trust. |
| INTERVIEWER: | What do you mean by a friend, Robert? |
| ROBERT: | Someone who likes the same things that you |
| do, who you can argue with and not lose your temper, even if you don't always |
| agree about things. I mean someone who you don't have to talk to |
| all the time but can be silent with perhaps. That's important, too. |
| You can just sit together and not say very much sometimes. Just relax. |
| I don't like people who talk all the time. |
| INTERVIEWER: | Are you very good at keeping in touch with your friends if you don't see |
| them regularly? |
| ROBERT: | No, not always. I've lived in lots of piaces, |
| and , to be honest , once I move away I often do drift out of touch with my or |
| friends. And I'm not a very good letter writer, either. Never have been. But |
| I know that if I saw those friends again, if I ever moved back to the same |
| place, for some other reason we got back into close contact again, I'm sure |
| the friendship would be just as strong as it was before. |
| JEAN: | Several of my friends have moved away, got married, things like that. One |
| of my friends has had a baby recently, and I'll admit I don't see her or |
| hearfrom her as much as I uesd to.... She lives in another neighbourhood and |
| whenI phone her, she always seems busy. But that's an exception. I write a |
| lot of letters to my friends and get a lot of letters from them. I have a |
| friend I went to school with and ten years ago she emigrated to Canada, |
| but she still writes to me every mom and I write to her just as often. |
|
