shewhomust | When we go rolling home...

We are in Nottingham for the funeral of my cousin: which is always a strange sort of reason for a strange sort of party. A. was one of the family group who come up to Sunderland from time to time, to watch the football, and are kind enough to allow us to join the for the post-match meal. So I knew that he had been diagnosed with a fairly advanced cancer, and the treatment only made him feel even worse; the invitation to his funeral did not come as a surprise. We looked at the details, and were puzzled that they suggested we would be at the crematorium for two hours - but A.'s daughter, in a rôle somewhere between celebrant and Master of Ceremonies, explained all: A. had worked with his children to plan his funeral, and had produced quite a detailed running order. "I suggest you book a double slot," he had written. "Because I'm worth it."

So there was time for a potted biography, and reminiscences from friends and family, and songs from the Sherwood Chorus, including one A. had written long ago. His companion and partner of recent years, P. read Robert Burns' Epitaph on my own Friend:

An honest man here lies at rest,
As e’er God with His image blest:
The friend of man, the friend of truth;
The friend of age, and guide of youth:
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d:
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.

I thought this was perfect, and not just for its brevity. So many of my memories of A. are characterised by his enthusiasms, his enjoyment of life - from a visit in my very early teens when he swept me off the play me his latest purchase, Bert Jansch's LP (there was just the one, at that time) to dinners more than fifty years later when we talked about what his book group was reading...

Long before his illness, A. had declared his choice of music to which he wanted his coffin consigned to the flames. In fact, this dramatic event does not happen in that way - but we played the Crazy World of Arthur Brown nonetheless.

Then we adjourned to a nearby(ish - Nottingham's a big city) pub, where there were drinks and food and people struggling to hear what each other were saying. We made plans to see each other, but not at a funeral next time (some combinations of us can hope to achieve this, others probably won't). By means of pushing in to conversations which weren't intended to include me, I managed to talk to a couple of members of the younger generation, in conversations which opened out into something real (at least, I thought so, and hope they did too). Mission accomplished, we ran the Bears back to the station, and are overnighting in a hotel (and recharging the car) before we head for home.