Tributes

[brightncheerful]

Not sure if i've mentioned this before - PD would've remembered and posted a link - but some 10 years after a client died his widow asked me to provide a tribute to him at the service of remembrance. A nice gesture, I would be the only one of his several professional advisers so i agreed. She asked me to submit a draft for the family's approval beforehand which i did.

On the day, what i hadn't included in the draft was my opening sentence: that it would be a very short tribute because as his professional adviser for some 25 years everything he told and discussed with me was in confidence so I wasn't in a position to say anything. The approved draft did however touch upon my knowledge of him generally and what i thought of him as a very successful businesses man.

At the reception afterwards, his widow thanked me for what i said, adding that when the time came she would like me to provide a tribute to her at her funeral. I said i should delighted - on one condition that i would be paid in advance.

---

A few years later, as executor for my father's brother's estate, i organised my uncle's funeral. It wasn't private funeral - anyone could have attended - but had the people i contacted not known about it in advance chances are only what little remained of his immediate family would have attended. I wrote and spoke the tribute. For research I asked my father and my own knowledge of a man who was so anti-social and had lived as if a hermit that i hardly knew anything about him. By the time I'd gathered enough information i knew more about him than i had done whilst he were alive. Amongst his possessions, which fortunately I had removed just days before his house was broken into by squatters, i found some early photos of him that he had had done professionally and many people remarked how handsome he had been as a young man.

[Mind you, i would say the same of people in the public eye. I'm not really interested in the early lives of people that I don't know so invariably I find it fascinating to read their obituaries and discover just much they had achieved. For example, I have a tenuous and indirect connection to Michael Morpurgo: reading his entry in Wikipedia yesterday I noted that as a youngster after the war he had played on the bombsites of Philbeach Gardens, Earls Court, London. Small world: Mrs Bnc used to live Philbeach Gardens.]

For my father's funeral, which I also organised, I wrote a 3500 word tribute. The advantage of writing about someone I loved was that it doubled as a catalyst for grief. By the time I had edited it and rehearsed reading it aloud a few times grief had been dissipated. What i said about him at the funeral was well received by all but one of the attendees. The exception was a woman whom my father had dated before he met my mother. I think my father was very keen on the woman because although she married someone else my father kept in touch with her and long after my mother passed away and my father's subsequent lady companion had also died my father resumed social contact with the woman; it suited my father to have someone who'd know him for such a long time, I know she was fond of him but only as a friend but what the woman didn't like about what I said was that my father had made overtures but was rejected and of a former girlfriend he sought more but had to come to terms with the fact he was by then much older and not as attractive a catch as he imagined.

---

All the above has been inspired by my cousin whose latest book has just been published. As one might expect of a person whose pre-retirement occupation was a well-known publisher, cousin's book has been extensively self-marketed. The good thing about Amazon is partly to read inside the book before buying and more importantly from my point of view, not having been offered a complimentary copy, to buy second-hand. To date, the second-hand price hasn't reached rock bottom so months to wait.

Amongst the first few free paragraphs, cousin writes about her parents and upbringing. Despite us both having lived in NW London, it is apparent to me that cousin seems to have led more of a sheltered life that I did. My perception of cousin was of a conventional person. Anyone born in the late 1940s early 1950s and that strove to have their individuality respected will i think appreciate how challenging it was to cope with parents whose opinions and attitudes were still or left-overs from the pre-war years and Victoria values. Do as you are told, do what is expected.

It does depend: when i was growing up in the London suburbs during the 1950s/1960s, Mrs Bnc was living in central London and participated in the swinging 60s and its aftermath far more than either myself or certainly my cousin did. The nearest I got to the swinging 60s was when at school a few of us would go to London's Hyde Park Speakers Corner on Sunday mornings where we formed the Bob Dylan Appreciation Society. After I left school, whilst my contemporaries were at weekends having formative social lives I had a car cleaning round and would go rowing alone on the Serpentine for a couple of hours early on a Sunday morning. In the free pages of the book, my cousin's comments about her parents do not resonate with my recollection. Inevitably, a child will have a different opinion of its parents to an outsider but I was not such an outsider: Had it not been for my mother introducing her best friend to my mother's brother, cousin would not have been born into our family. So in effect cousin and myself despite being products of similar attitudes are worlds apart in our attitudes now.

Which is why I have decided not to mention to cousin (in case cousin isn't aware of this already) that publishers are profiteers. In the 17th century it was the booksellers that commissioned authors, did the printing of loose-leafs and book-binding. Profiteers were unpopular because they were regarded as merely cashing in on the achievements of others without contributing any added-value - unless what they offered could not be found readily elsewhere. I have decided not to mention that in case it would prejudice any chance of being invited to provide tribute at cousin's funeral.

[tjh290633]

Thanks for that BnC.

You have reminded me of the one time I have delivered a tribute. A former colleague from the 1960 era passed away and I was the closest available person to give a tribute on behalf of the Society of Glass Technology, of which we were both Fellows. Although he worked in the laboratory across the passage from me, my only real memory was that he frequently began conversations with "When I was at GEC". I thought that I had better investigate further and discovered a number of important patents which he had to his name. I knew of his subsequent career, so that was no problem, and the family were very appreciative.

Another memorial service which I attended as first reserve giver of tribute was unusual. Jim had had so many activities in his retirement that there was a tribute from each of them, six in all, as I recall. Had I spoken I would have mentioned the time in the then Leningrad, where we attended the International Commission on Glass. One morning Jim appeared, having been talking to some of the students who were acting as guides and helpers in a flat the other side of the Neva river. At night the bridges lift to allow shipping to pass, so Jim was stuck on the wrong side of the river during the small hours, having been discussing Jane Austen. He was a great character and gave an annual lecture on Glass at the Science Museum for many years, which included drawing a glass fibre by shooting an arrow and some spectacular demonstrations of Prince Rupert Drops.

There are many characters about and it is a privilege to be asked to deliver a tribute to one of them.

TJH