News from Nowhere

It's not every funeral you come away from earwormed by (Is this the way to) Amerillo. But maybe there's no such thing as "every funeral".

Yesterday we went to York for the funeral of durham_rambler's cousin: she was a lovely person whom we didn't see very often: here's the piece in the local paper (much interrupted by intrusive ads).

If I had realised that family traceling up from the south would be staying the night in York before the funeral, I would have argued more strongly for our doing likewise: we'd have had time together, a more leisurely start in the morning and a more timely arrival. But then we would have missed the sight of the the low winter sun gleaming on the walls and gates of York, as we inched round the perimeter of the city (against the clock, but it was still a glorious sight).

The funeral itself was in the parish church, which was very much higher than any I've been to before: much lighting of candles, and the swinging of a censer to produce clouds of smole (it smelled of singed cloves). But there was also a brass band, because Denise had been a member of the Shepherd Group Concert Band. They payed as part of the service, in between the choir, and the organ, and the hymns (including Jerusalem). Afterwards, when the close family had gone to the crematorium, they played again: and perhaps we should have joined the family, but we weren't sure, and if we had, we wouldn't have heard the band play Beyond the Sea (below, in their more familiar habitat)>



Aterwards, at the reception, we had a 40 minute set from the band in full upbeat mode, which was both fun and strange: it impeded conversation.but it worked, in a strange, cheerful way.

Afterwards we drove home in the low bright evening light.

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.

samarcand's birthday is not until next week, but it falls on a working day so the party is tonight. Hooray! Party!

Today is (was) Grandma's birthday. Grandma was my mother's mother, and for much of her life she did not know when her real birthday was. Her mother died when she was a small child, and she was brought up by her stepfather and stepmother. When she started school, her stepmother claimed to know her age, but not her birthday, and the headmaster said, well, never mind, she can share mine.

It was not until her children were grown and married that she told them this story, and my father pointed out that there would be a record of her birth (in those days, at Somerset House). So he and my uncle went and looked it up, and not only found the true birthday, they discovered that Grandma was a year younger than she had thought.

That's how my mother told the story, anyway. She always put in that the wicked stepmother had deliberately made Grandma a year older, so that she could leave school a year earlier - but my mother was a great myth-maker.

Anyway, July 25th: Grandma's birthday and the beginning of the school holidays, a day worth celebrating.