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 idealise themselves as men across time and their life course. Related to thisweare limited inwhatwemight claim flows entirely fromthe 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.