Over the last year I seem to have written a larger than usual number of blog posts about people I know who have died.
In the 1980s, when our parents died all within the decade, Val and I were suddenly aware of being the older generation.
Now, however it is the in-between generation who are disappearing. People who were older than us, but younger than our parents. These people were our teachers, mentors, guides, people from whom we learnt stuff. And so many of them seem to have died over the last year.
Here are some of the ones I've blogged about:
- In Memoriam: Father Michael Harper: Khanya. Father Michael was the Anglican charismatic leader who became an Orthodox priest, and died on the Feast of Theophany, 2010.
- Memoir: former Anglican bishop Graham Leonard: Khanya. Graham Leonard was the Anglican bishop of London, who left the Anglican Church and became a Roman Catholic priest.
- Tales from Dystopia IV: Dennis Brutus and political interference in sporting affairs: Khanya. I never met Dennis Butus, but out files crossed on the desk of a Security Policeman in Pretoria. He campaigned against apartheid in sport, and became a well-known poet.
- Benedikt Benedikz: librarian, scholar, raconteur: Khanya. He was a librarian at the University of Durham when I studied there in the 1960s.
- Notes from underground: Of babies and bathwater: English theological and ecclesiastical reformers. John Fenton was the principal of St Chad's College, Durham, where I studied for a post-graduate diploma in theology, 1966-68.
- In memoriam: Helen Suzman: Khanya. Helen Suzman was a South African politician who opposed apartheid when it was the height of political incorrectness to do so. I met her once, and voted for her once.
The next stage, I suppose, is blogging about one's contemporaries. I wonder if anyone will blog about me when I snuff it?
Andii Bowsher, in
Nouslife: In defence of lists quotes Umberto Eco as saying:The list is the origin of culture. It's part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order -- not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries.
I was reminded of a TV series a couple of years ago called "The human footprint", which was a kind of list of the effects human beings have on the planet -- how many cubic feet of farts one emits in a lifetime and so on.
One item intrigued me -- the average Brit knows 1750 people in their lifetime. I decided to make a list of all the people I knew, and what I remembered about them. I'm at about number 750 now. The dead live on in the memory of the living, but when I am dead, who will remember those? Is that why at funerals we sing "Memory eternal"?
So here's my list of some people I've met who have died over the past year. Memory eternal!