Last update from England
We fly out tomorrow morning and should get back to the girls (missing them so much) around 7.00 at night.
The funeral was yesterday and went very well. It sounds funny to say that, but I was concerned in case news leaked to my father's mother that he'd died and she showed up. If she had, it would've been frightful. I know that again, it sounds strange not to want her there but she and Dad were estranged for decades, despite the fact that she lives ten minutes walk away and she truly is a nasty woman, in her nineties now. We had a moment of surreal humour the day before the funeral in the supermarket, shopping for the food and drink for the little get together afterwards; Mum came up to me and said she'd seen Granny Ward in the next aisle and we spent the rest of the shopping trip dodging her by inches.
We drove behind the hearse to the crematorium and got out of the car, me, Mum, David and his parents, only to find everyone in a long line, facing us, outside the place, with us walking towards them down a long path.
Most awkward, silent march in the world! Then Uncle Roger broke ranks and came to hug Mum (his sister) and we reached the line and I went down it hugging people until they called for me because it was time to go in and I was holding things up.
The service was 30 mins, no minister, just us. We sang Abide With Me and I started to choke up, totally, but made it to the end, then Lisa (married to Dad's nephew) said some very kind words about how Dad had helped her decorate and how much the children loved him and coming over to catch frogs in his pond or walk in the woods by our house. She almost broke down a time or two; she'd only had two hours sleep because she'd been in London the night before and caught the train at six that morning to race up here. Then Uncle Andy read out what I'd written, said some words of his own, including the story of Dad saving his life. I remember that. We were on a family camping holiday and Andy was climbing a cliff that started to crumble, with rocks below and the sea lashing them, tide coming in. Dad threw him a rope and hauled him up -- so focused on getting his brother to safety that he kept on going and dragged them both through twenty feet of prickly gorse bushes :-)
We finished with Dad's choice of music; Joe Cocker's version of With a Little Help From My Friends.
Most people came back to the house and that was very nice, seeing relatives and friends, catching up and remembering.
I was touched to discover from the girls that my publisher Torquere had sent flowers to my home in Canada; what a lovely gesture! Thank you, Shawn and Lorna :;hugs::
Phil, my brother, rang from Australia which was sad because he was upset and of course we all wanted him to be there with us to share the day and hug him. He was very much in our thoughts.
Tonight, we're having a small bonfire as a final act of farewell. Dad's November 5th bonfires are legendary and there's a dead tree at the top of the garden...
This was what I wrote, though it felt very stilted somehow...you couldn't do someone like Dad justice. He was an original.
In the week since Nigel’s death, the one thing people keep telling Judith is how much he made them laugh. The man whose skill on the drums entertained people in clubs for years could also keep people smiling off the stage.
He was a man who could walk into a shop and leave people behind the counter and in line still chuckling over what he’d said or his hat with the lights on, a gift from his granddaughters that he loved to show off.
The new friends he made in Canada while visiting Jane have many good memories of him. If Jane couldn’t find him enough to do, Nigel would go over to her friend April’s house to paint or work in her garden. She remembers the gardening tips he passed on and how he left her with tears of laughter when he started to tell his stories. April told Judith that she couldn’t imagine a world without Nigel in it, a sentiment we all share.
Nigel wasn’t just a man with a dry sense of humour. He was a seller of dreams, a visionary. His children grew up believing with him that just around the corner would be the idea that would make their dad rich and famous. It was never the money that Nigel was interested in, though, as much as the thrill of discovering the bright idea that no one had ever thought of before. His example inspired his children to be creative and to launch themselves into the world, living thousands of miles away, secure in the knowledge that there was always a loving welcome for them when they returned home.
A famous writer from Scotland, a place Nigel felt so drawn to that he returned there time and again for holidays, once said that any obstacle can be overcome by someone whose childhood was informed by love and Jane and Philip can attest to that.
Nigel was also a man of great personal integrity and values. He was honest in a way that’s gone out of fashion now, in small matters as in large, a man you could trust, a man who never turned down someone in need. He helped out the elderly people living nearby in so many ways, an unsung hero, quietly lending a land.
Growing up, a child feels that its father can do anything and it was always that way with Nigel. Jane would ring him from Canada to ask advice on anything from plumbing to painting and know that the answer would be there. He could turn his hand to any number of tasks or hobbies -- decorating, gardening, fishing, car maintenance, to name just a few -- and do them well -- though Judith knows how hard it was to get him to finish a job. There’s still some skirting board that needs a top coat doing in the spare room, Nigel…
Judith is left with a host of memories of a man who made so many people laugh with him at the world we live in. Nigel could talk for hours about what was wrong with it, very much against any narrowing of personal freedom and rights, but he was a man who loved life no matter where he lived it.
As we celebrate his life today and mourn his passing, we can look back to a true original, a man of imagination and vision, much loved, much missed.
There’s a well known poem:
Go not gently into that good night
But rage, rage against the dying of the night.
Nigel went gently, slipping away after one final exchanged look with Judith, his much-loved wife, but those of us left can rage for him and the way that he left too soon but left so many missing him.
It’s a cliché perhaps, but it’s as true as they often are: when they made Nigel, they broke the mould.
The funeral was yesterday and went very well. It sounds funny to say that, but I was concerned in case news leaked to my father's mother that he'd died and she showed up. If she had, it would've been frightful. I know that again, it sounds strange not to want her there but she and Dad were estranged for decades, despite the fact that she lives ten minutes walk away and she truly is a nasty woman, in her nineties now. We had a moment of surreal humour the day before the funeral in the supermarket, shopping for the food and drink for the little get together afterwards; Mum came up to me and said she'd seen Granny Ward in the next aisle and we spent the rest of the shopping trip dodging her by inches.
We drove behind the hearse to the crematorium and got out of the car, me, Mum, David and his parents, only to find everyone in a long line, facing us, outside the place, with us walking towards them down a long path.
Most awkward, silent march in the world! Then Uncle Roger broke ranks and came to hug Mum (his sister) and we reached the line and I went down it hugging people until they called for me because it was time to go in and I was holding things up.
The service was 30 mins, no minister, just us. We sang Abide With Me and I started to choke up, totally, but made it to the end, then Lisa (married to Dad's nephew) said some very kind words about how Dad had helped her decorate and how much the children loved him and coming over to catch frogs in his pond or walk in the woods by our house. She almost broke down a time or two; she'd only had two hours sleep because she'd been in London the night before and caught the train at six that morning to race up here. Then Uncle Andy read out what I'd written, said some words of his own, including the story of Dad saving his life. I remember that. We were on a family camping holiday and Andy was climbing a cliff that started to crumble, with rocks below and the sea lashing them, tide coming in. Dad threw him a rope and hauled him up -- so focused on getting his brother to safety that he kept on going and dragged them both through twenty feet of prickly gorse bushes :-)
We finished with Dad's choice of music; Joe Cocker's version of With a Little Help From My Friends.
Most people came back to the house and that was very nice, seeing relatives and friends, catching up and remembering.
I was touched to discover from the girls that my publisher Torquere had sent flowers to my home in Canada; what a lovely gesture! Thank you, Shawn and Lorna :;hugs::
Phil, my brother, rang from Australia which was sad because he was upset and of course we all wanted him to be there with us to share the day and hug him. He was very much in our thoughts.
Tonight, we're having a small bonfire as a final act of farewell. Dad's November 5th bonfires are legendary and there's a dead tree at the top of the garden...
This was what I wrote, though it felt very stilted somehow...you couldn't do someone like Dad justice. He was an original.
In the week since Nigel’s death, the one thing people keep telling Judith is how much he made them laugh. The man whose skill on the drums entertained people in clubs for years could also keep people smiling off the stage.
He was a man who could walk into a shop and leave people behind the counter and in line still chuckling over what he’d said or his hat with the lights on, a gift from his granddaughters that he loved to show off.
The new friends he made in Canada while visiting Jane have many good memories of him. If Jane couldn’t find him enough to do, Nigel would go over to her friend April’s house to paint or work in her garden. She remembers the gardening tips he passed on and how he left her with tears of laughter when he started to tell his stories. April told Judith that she couldn’t imagine a world without Nigel in it, a sentiment we all share.
Nigel wasn’t just a man with a dry sense of humour. He was a seller of dreams, a visionary. His children grew up believing with him that just around the corner would be the idea that would make their dad rich and famous. It was never the money that Nigel was interested in, though, as much as the thrill of discovering the bright idea that no one had ever thought of before. His example inspired his children to be creative and to launch themselves into the world, living thousands of miles away, secure in the knowledge that there was always a loving welcome for them when they returned home.
A famous writer from Scotland, a place Nigel felt so drawn to that he returned there time and again for holidays, once said that any obstacle can be overcome by someone whose childhood was informed by love and Jane and Philip can attest to that.
Nigel was also a man of great personal integrity and values. He was honest in a way that’s gone out of fashion now, in small matters as in large, a man you could trust, a man who never turned down someone in need. He helped out the elderly people living nearby in so many ways, an unsung hero, quietly lending a land.
Growing up, a child feels that its father can do anything and it was always that way with Nigel. Jane would ring him from Canada to ask advice on anything from plumbing to painting and know that the answer would be there. He could turn his hand to any number of tasks or hobbies -- decorating, gardening, fishing, car maintenance, to name just a few -- and do them well -- though Judith knows how hard it was to get him to finish a job. There’s still some skirting board that needs a top coat doing in the spare room, Nigel…
Judith is left with a host of memories of a man who made so many people laugh with him at the world we live in. Nigel could talk for hours about what was wrong with it, very much against any narrowing of personal freedom and rights, but he was a man who loved life no matter where he lived it.
As we celebrate his life today and mourn his passing, we can look back to a true original, a man of imagination and vision, much loved, much missed.
There’s a well known poem:
Go not gently into that good night
But rage, rage against the dying of the night.
Nigel went gently, slipping away after one final exchanged look with Judith, his much-loved wife, but those of us left can rage for him and the way that he left too soon but left so many missing him.
It’s a cliché perhaps, but it’s as true as they often are: when they made Nigel, they broke the mould.