In terms of masculine identities it is fair to say that, given the age and the temporal proximity of our interviews with the men’s death of a peer, there is much that might change in how participants ideal is them selves as men across time and their life course. Related to this wear limited in what we might claim flows entirely from the loss of a male peer versus what emerges at varying time points in young men’s lives. For example, men who described having an adventurer identify may have been likely to take on that identity independent of the death of their friend, while there was some urgency among the lamplighters to avoid the all too common deaths within their impoverished social group. The father figure in turn aligned to honourable masculine virtues that perhaps signalled a loss of innocence and the need to be mature beyond their years.