Rica’s remarks at Funeral Thank you all for coming. When I use this common opening remark, I mean it in the sense that you are here because of your relationship with our Dad. Although your relationship was from one or more of his interests, you had that particular connection with him. So I am thanking all of you, as your presence reflects completely Dad’s wide and deep values, interests, and activities during his long life. Mine and Judith’s connections with our Dad was very particular. He was very particular as a father, and many of you know what a stickler he was for details, especially in the case of language, and we shared innumerable punny moments with him. To help me think of what to share with you, I have mined this use of language and re-read his extensive self-written memoirs, which he started writing around 1999, and stopped around 2001. Dad loved my sister and I equally. After we had learned to walk, and talk a little, he took a very keen interest in our development. He taught us to read, when each of us was around 4, and later when each of us was around 7, he also taught us to read music. For me, this was an early beginning of a lifetime of gift giving, from him to me. An early memory from this time was his delight, when I returned home one evening on the school bus from my first infant school, and explained why I had with me a tube of Smarties and a silver threepenny bit. The Headmistress had given them to me when I had been sent to read aloud to her in her office, and she rewarded me in this way as the youngest girl in school who could read at a good fluent standard! I think Judith and I sometimes found our Dad quite strict, and he could also be short-tempered and impatient, but he was a lion in defending our interests. When Judith broke her arm, at the age of 4, the casualty doctor at the then Northern hospital neglected to ensure an X-ray was immediately taken and the break diagnosed. As Dad wrote in his memoirs, “quote” “I had strongly told the doctor in charge what I thought of his diagnosis and treatment”. My childhood memory of this was as a worried 8 year old, in another room, some way down the hospital corridor, hearing extremely loudly, Dad shouting his head off, in his frustration and concern at the Doctor’s lack of care for Judith’s condition, and myself feeling embarrassed at the time, thinking the whole hospital could hear!! Dad could also be very patient with us, as youngsters. He sat for hours with each of us, when we did our piano practise, and regularly took us for many years into town on the bus to Oxford Road, to the Northern School of Music, Junior Music school every Saturday morning. He always fostered our interest in concerts, and also operas and plays, as well as the world around us. On my first visit to London, as a 12 yr old, as well as showing me the sights, we went to see ‘The Tempest’ at the former Drury Lane theatre, a wonderful experience I still remember, especially, when Dad, tired after a day as delegate at the N.U.T. Annual Conference fell asleep during a great Gielgud performance as Prospero, and I had to nudge him to wake up so his snoring didn’t disturb the rest of the audience!! Somehow, after our Mum died, he found the strength to carry on, and, again, I quote “I was determined that the girls’ education and welfare would not suffer, even though they were now motherless, so I did all the shopping , cleaning and cooking, and then all my school marking and lesson preparation.” Fortunately, by this time, when I was 16, and Judith 12, we were old enough to begin taking our part too, with these household tasks, and once Dad learnt to drive, some things, such as visiting our Grandma, his mother, in a care home in Southport, became easier. Dad’s detailed accounts in his memoirs describe events in our lives occurring long after this period, such as my Higher education and studies, at Royal Manchester College of Music, and later Judith’s, at the London School of Slavonic and East European Studies; later again, my marriage, and Judith’s, and then the birth of our daughters, Jo, Emma, and Sadie, and with each of his granddaughters he remained always utterly delighted. I was very happy for Dad, and later Judith was too, that his second chance for happiness came in his long and fulfilling relationship for around 40 years with Vera, both during the time they still both worked, and their subsequent happy retirement. When Vera died, eventually we found Dad needed more care, and he lived near me, in Wirral, at a local care home, where their attention was of a good standard. There were sometimes hiccups, and I am forever grateful to the solid, and loving support from my sister, Judith during Dad’s last years, she has been the proverbial Tower of Strength for me, and Dad greatly appreciated her visits, which meant she had to travel long distance, every time. My husband David, my daughter Emma, my daughter Jo and her good friend Paul, my niece Sadie and her new husband Miguel, and my brother-in-law Michael, have all, also provided unstinting and much appreciated support. Finally, just to say, I still find myself hearing Dad’s voice in my head, what he might have said both about family matters, or the state of the world he strove all his life to change for the better. I visited him nearly every day these last 2 years or so, and now, although my daily life is burst asunder, our highly precious and particular connection will remain always. Goodbye, dear, dear, Dad, love you.