Simon's wit was underpinned by a moral outlook forged at the family dinner table. He and Dad were two sides of the same coin
I had never written a funeral tribute before this January. Now I have delivered two in just over three months and am preparing to write a third. The first was for my brother, Simon, the second for our father, Richard, and the third will be for our mother, Mary, who followed her husband out of this life on Monday. My parents had been married for 72 years, utterly devoted since they met as freshers at Leeds University.
This concertina crash of bereavements has made me reflect in a new way on the qualities of two men whose inspiring, occasionally intimidating presence has loomed over my entire life. As the warmth of the obituaries testifies, both had large and enthusiastic followings. Yet to outsiders, the demarcations have often seemed sharp. Dad was a serious academic, a leftwing social moralist, informed by the puritanism of his Methodist upbringing a Roundhead, if you like. Simon whose memorial service was on Wednesday was funny, a satirical gadfly with a sharp eye for bullshit, but no obvious political agenda, who could find humour in almost anything and who revelled in fine wine a cavalier.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 47 minutes ago.
I had never written a funeral tribute before this January. Now I have delivered two in just over three months and am preparing to write a third. The first was for my brother, Simon, the second for our father, Richard, and the third will be for our mother, Mary, who followed her husband out of this life on Monday. My parents had been married for 72 years, utterly devoted since they met as freshers at Leeds University.
This concertina crash of bereavements has made me reflect in a new way on the qualities of two men whose inspiring, occasionally intimidating presence has loomed over my entire life. As the warmth of the obituaries testifies, both had large and enthusiastic followings. Yet to outsiders, the demarcations have often seemed sharp. Dad was a serious academic, a leftwing social moralist, informed by the puritanism of his Methodist upbringing a Roundhead, if you like. Simon whose memorial service was on Wednesday was funny, a satirical gadfly with a sharp eye for bullshit, but no obvious political agenda, who could find humour in almost anything and who revelled in fine wine a cavalier.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 47 minutes ago.