My father died last Wednesday (29th July). This – more or less – is what I said at his thanksgiving service on Friday:
Su and I – and our families – owe dad and mum a huge debt. They have always been ‘there for us,’ and have always been supportive. I would like to take this opportunity to thank mum (who is here to hear it), and dad (who isn’t) for their love and care. As a family, we’re not greatly into expressing our feelings, and I haven’t thanked dad and mum in the past as much as I should have done, and would have liked to have done.
Just about my last memory of dad is at Jon and Hannah’s wedding. At the reception, we were all supposed to wait for Jon and Hannah to board the boat first, so they could welcome us on board. Somehow, dad and mum managed to breach the security cordon, and they were next seen on the top deck, leaning out through one of the big windows, with huge smiles on their faces. That was dad all over. He had a wicked sense of humour and of mischief, and he could also be subversive in a more serious way when the occasion called for it.
The wedding was the last time I saw him.
My earliest memory of dad – I think I was about four years old at the time – was of us sitting together on a verandah at what was then John Groom’s Crippleage, in Edgeware, watching an intense thunderstorm pass over. It could have been scary, but I was OK because I was with dad.
In some ways I was a bit scared of dad, growing up. He could be quite daunting. He had high expectations, and he didn’t suffer fools gladly, or put up with you giving less than your best.
But if you asked what made dad who he was, his faith in Christ was the central reality of his life. He was committed to God, to the Bible, and to mission. He passed this commitment on to both his children.
Dad was always active, and he was always helping people. There’s something characteristic about the fact that when he was taken ill the Sunday before last, he was in the middle of driving a couple of people home from church.
Dad spent his life working with young people, both as a teacher and headmaster, and working with youth and children in a Christian context. One of my abiding memories of dad as we grew up is of going to various Christian camps where he was helping in some way. He also worked in a succession of church youth groups – often, it seems to me in hindsight, in small and struggling churches.
Another early memory was of dad driving our elderly Bedford dormobile down to London to visit my grandmother – something we seemed to do almost every weekend for many years, and it was a great adventure for me. This dormobile was a big old 12-seater van, and we had it, rather than a ‘proper’ car, so that we could ferry around the kids in the church youth group. That too was characteristic of dad.
After dad and mum retired and moved to Taunton, they continued to work with young people, and for many years they were closely involved with the admin side of the Somerset Counties camps.
During the past week, the church here at Creech has been holding a holiday club for kids called ‘Showstoppers.’ You may have noticed some signs of that still around us. And it’s very appropriate that this should be so, because in the last few days of his life, dad was very much looking forward to getting the t-shirt and helping with the club.
It was not to be. There was a great evangelist in the 18th century called George Whitefield, who once said that ‘a man is immortal until his work is done.’ Well, dad’s work is done, and now he is with Christ, which is far better.
One day, we will see him again. Meanwhile, I will miss him more than I can say.
