In memoriam

My son Robert said it was hard to know his Granddad and then a few days later described him perfectly to me. Dad was always someone who seemed opaque but whose thoughts were unmistakeable and whose values were unwavering. He was superficially calm but had a core of steel. He was the master of the sotto voce sarcastic comment and yet in reality was slow to judge and quick to love. It is easy to see where this originated – he had spent much of his life as a chameleon. After all, it is hard to be who you really are when being who you really are risks imprisonment and death. This 99 year old man was once a Jewish boy who spat at the SS in the streets of Lübeck and then disappeared down its labyrinthine alleyways. An act of unequivocal defiance but delivered almost invisibly.

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As an adult in England, my Dad was three different people: he even used three different names. At work he was Harry, the chemical engineer and expert in petrochemical production safety. Even so, I remember taking him to the train station with Mum to find him the single proponent of an olive trilby and a khaki single-breasted mac, in a sea of black bowler hats and gabardine coats. As ever, he couldn’t quite bring himself to conform, especially to a uniform that was so inelegant. To his wider family, he was Hermann, named after his grandfather and the Lübeck family patriarch. This iteration spoke German first and English second – the reason that Janet and I can both understand some conversational German, much to the confusion of my determinedly Anglophone husband when we visited friends and family in Germany for Dad’s 95th. At home, he was Hans, his given name, and the one my mother used. This was where this polyglottic, cosmopolitan man was his real self and at home in Send was where he was happy. Hans Hermann Meyer, Barbara’s husband and father to Janet, Vivienne, Helen and Felicity; not forgetting Snoopy the Jack Russell and Bruno her successor. ‘Early to bed, early to rise makes a little doggie healthy, wealthy and wise’ I once overheard him telling Snoopy as he put her to bed.

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People, and especially family, were always what mattered to my Dad. I remember calling him after a burglary in which his mother’s wedding ring had been stolen from my house, worried that he would be upset or angry. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he replied to me quite equably, ‘They are only things’. Who became a member of our family was also a subject of the utmost importance to my Dad, leading to what my children called ‘the Granddad test’. On the night Janet and Philip met, my Dad came home and declared that they would get married. This led to a family legend that Dad knew instinctively who we would marry. Various subsequent suitors of the Meyer and Weston clans have unequivocally failed this test: we never married any of them. The tacit approval my Dad had of Richard on their first meeting, during which Rich was introduced to the delights of Indian food, was therefore extremely important to me, as well as a huge relief! There is only one girlfriend who has ever been subjected to the test. ‘She’s lovely, so vivacious’, he said. Unsurprisingly, Zoë Te Weston passed with flying colours.

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My father’s other great talent was ‘fixing’. Dad could find the answer to anything. Despite his inscrutable exterior, Dad was someone who would always be there and solve problems, either with his hands or his brain. He had fantastic spatial sense – as a child, he had harboured dreams of being an architect – he could easily visualise the plans of a room or the outline of a garden. He had a profound appreciation of art too. Some bookshelves in one corner of our lounge were given over to atlases for travelling and for art books purchased when he got there. We visited the Sainsbury gallery together more than once and I always found that he knew more and saw more vividly than I did. Art was one of his windows to the beauty of humanity. And as a human being, he was both tolerant and dependable. If you needed Dad, he was there for you – no questions asked, no debt to pay in return. He was incredibly generous. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than taking all his family out to dinner: good food, good wine and good company. An Epicurean - perhaps because he knew how swiftly those pleasures could be taken away.

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Not that long ago, but before he was ill, Dad said to me that he didn’t see the point of living as he was no use to anyone. I answered him truthfully that he was useful to me. I often wondered since then what I would do once he was gone. But the thing is; he isn’t gone. He is here in all of us. In Janet’s passion to explore the world without prejudice; in my spatial sense and fixing hands; in Tim’s love of good food and drink and of course vivacious women; in Alex’s calm and stillness; in Francesca’s love of art and beauty; in Tina’s quiet, resolute determination; in the steely core concealed under Cathy’s apparently vulnerable exterior; in Robert who wants to fit in but can’t quite resist being different and in Tom’s reply to any request for help: ‘Yes, sure’ he says. Dad would not have regretted that his funeral was small because we are here: not in the place where he was born but in the home that he chose and created with the woman he loved.

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

 

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell

When I embark;

 

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

Mum was born just before Christmas in a small house in Aspatria in 1936; just an hour or so’s walk from here. Her sister Pat was about a year older and Margaret came along eleven years later. The house is still there; 20 King’s Street and I’ve now walked and driven past it many times over the last few years. The family weren’t well off and they moved down to Birmingham after the war to find better work. Mum was clearly rather academic. She went to King’s Norton Grammar School, an establishment with a great reputation, and was awarded 2 A levels. One in English and one in Biology. She always said that these were the two subjects that interested her the most. Looking back now I think it must have been quite an achievement in the 1950s for her to earn those qualifications. Certainly, as we grew up and went through the exam system it was clear that she set enormous store by trying to achieve academically. She kept one or two friendships from her school years going through the decades and right up to the present day. She went on to qualify as a member of the Institute of Medical Laboratory Technology and Ann and I, a few days ago, found her fine looking certificate still rolled up for safekeeping in “the tin box”. She worked for a number of years in the laboratories at Selly Oak Hospital and had much respect for all things scientific and medical throughout her life.

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In parallel to all of this, Mum met Dad; at the Laura Dixon School of Dance. He had just come back from a tour of Egypt with the RAF and Mum always said that she was attracted by his tan and his blue eyes. Mum was only seventeen at the time. They got married in 1957, in the face of, as I understand it, some opposition from her parents. I know during their courting that they habitually came up to the Lake District for holidays. Quite a trek up the old A6, through all the towns and cities and over Shap Fells on a little scooter. The picture of Mum in her younger days in the order of service was taken whilst boating on Derwent Water during one of those holidays. They went on to buy their first house, a new build, three-bedroom semi for the princely sum of £700 on the outskirts of Stourbridge. I came along in 1962 followed by Ann in 1964. Our younger brother Peter was born in 1968 but tragically died in 1971. The word “tragically” is bandied about but cannot begin to describe the black anguish of that time. How Mum and Dad got through it I don’t know. I do know that Mum especially always tried to present a cheerful façade to me and my sister, only occasionally cracking. I’m afraid I have no insight into how she and Dad coped internally.

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At least in part because of our brother’s death, we moved to Fairford in Gloucestershire in 1972 and Mum took up a job again as a lab technician at the local comprehensive school. A job she kept until they moved up here in 1990. Me and Ann grew up, went through various stages of education and eventually moved away. Mum and Dad had a circle of good friends with whom they did much socialising. They got involved with beekeeping and the bees produced many jars of honey over a number of years. However, I don’t think Mum ever really felt completely at home there. By 1990 they had both retired and moved up here, to within a few miles of where she and indeed her own parents had been born. They loved it up here; and we all loved them being up here. Felicity and I got married in 1989 and Ann and Dave in 1990. We would, whenever we could arrange it, come up for a few days of walking in the hills followed by good food, good wine and good company. We were able to return the compliment from time to time as Mum and Dad used our house in Kent as a jumping off point for their long caravan holidays in France. Grandchildren followed. Rhosyn in 1993 followed by Holly, Catherine, Robert and finally Thomas in 2003. I remember a handful of chaotic Christmases, presided over by a smiling cheerful Grandma with various combinations of us together in Wychford. Sometimes spilling out into the caravan parked on the drive.

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In 2004 Dad passed away only a few weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Mum of course was utterly bereft. They had been married for 46 years. As was her way I’m sure she kept the worst times hidden away and endeavoured to present a bright façade to the outside world. She and my Aunt, Gwen, nursed him at home between them until he died, also at home.

During this time and ever since really, Mum has been a part of, and supported by, the local community. She loved the church we are sitting in now. She was a church warden and made it very clear for a number of years that this is where she wanted to end up when her own time came. She was an active member of the Mother’s Union, the Monday Club and of the Bowls Club. She spent several years going on a series of quite exotic holidays, either with one of her friends or even just by herself. Ann and I have worked out that she went to every continent, including Antarctica. In between all of this Mum kept her garden absolutely immaculate. There were (and still are) flowers of all sorts and for all seasons surrounding a velvet green lawn; with apple trees in the back and a nice new patio behind the house.  She went on having this active and varied life for a number of years. She had a hip replacement and briefly considered moving to be nearer to our or Ann’s family. But no, here was home and this is where she decided to stay, surrounded by the caring community in which she found herself; and I think it was the right decision.

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About five years ago, the first signs of a serious illness started to show themselves. Mum was her own worst enemy really. Struggling on, not making a fuss, and not wanting to give any indication that there was anything wrong. We came to visit for a few days on our way up to Scotland and it was clear to all of us that she was ill. My wife Felicity, as a health professional, wrote a letter to Mum’s GP to push things through and she was diagnosed with lymphoma. After some initial treatment at Carlisle, we were able to have Mum living with us for a few months while she received her chemo and radiotherapy at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. The treatment was deemed successful and Mum was able to come back here to live her own life for a few years. It was during a routine follow up to the lymphoma that the ovarian cancer was detected. Mum made it abundantly clear on several occasions to her medical team that she didn’t want to receive any more chemo or radio therapy. She also made it clear that she wanted to be at home during her illness. I have wondered from time to time if she said that because she didn’t want to be too much trouble but I don’t think so. This was her home and this is where she wanted to be. And who can blame her. Surrounded by enormously supportive friends like Rita, Gladys, Pamela, Yvonne and others, and with a view out of the back window second to none. Lockdown was very tough on Mum, she was shielding because of her vulnerable status, but again her friends and neighbours came though. The family over the road kept in touch via little messages and cooked her Christmas dinner last year. As lock down eased, so it became possible for more visits. Myself and Ann (sometimes with family as well) visited when we could but it was clear to see that her health was waning. Even then it was all we could do to cook a meal or load the dishwasher for her without her doing it for herself. More importantly her friends from around Oughterside and Aspatria came to visit on a daily basis. Gladys in particular came round initially to look after the garden but was, much more importantly, a good friend, able to offer companionship and much practical support. Mum’s final months would have been much poorer without these visits. There are not words enough to express our gratitude to Gladys and Pamela in particular for their part in making Mum’s final hours as comfortable as possible and for making sure her wish to die at home could come true.

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So, those are the bare bones of a life lived. But what about Mum herself? Tim, the vicar here, asked me and Ann a few days ago to try to describe Mum and what she was like. It was very difficult. How do you describe someone who is the absolute centre of your universe during the formative years of your life? Mum was the reference point against whom everyone else was measured and compared. Always there, dependable, like a rock in a fast-flowing stream. Always cheerful and reassuring if you went to her with a scraped knee or because someone was horrible to you in the playground.

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Definitely loving, generous and considerate. She adored her five grandchildren and was always anxious to know how they were getting on. They in turn loved to see her and really relished the trips up to Oughterside. She always played down her own problems and it was only in the later stages of her illness that she gave an indication that she “wasn’t doing too well actually”, followed quickly by an enquiry on how we were all doing. She retained her interest in aspects of English literature. She enjoyed reading and used to go on regular trips to the theatre which she really loved. There is an extensive collection of RSC programmes still in Wychford.

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Mum had a certain flinty determination to see things through. That determination to look after my dad at home was a good example. Also, an event from one of her holidays a few years ago displayed this very well. Visiting Namibia of all places with a friend who was suddenly taken very ill with a stroke. Mum got her back home across a number of international borders, on several long flights, and negotiating administration and bureaucracy along the way. Only after getting her back to the UK did she sit down, relax and burst into tears. In fact, everyone I’ve spoken to about Mum has mentioned her determination. I went to see Ron and Annie a few days ago and their son explained how you couldn’t keep her down and that he had seen her scraping moss from the front drive just a few days previously.

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I just want to end with a quotation found by my son, Robert, a short while after he heard of his grandma’s passing. It’s from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. It just seems spot on to me, especially with Mum’s love of her garden:

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Everyone must leave something behind when [they die]…. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.  

We can all remember Barbara as she was in her last few years, but that is not and never was how I envisage her. When I remember Mum, there is a whiff of Chanel No5, pillar box red lipstick, pale pink nail varnish, chestnut brown hair shot through with auburn and China blue Celtic eyes. To a child, she seemed impossibly glamorous and wonderfully cuddly all at the same time. I remember her changing to go out to a works dance with Dad, wearing a sparkly navy, silver and shocking pink full length gown and short jacket. I loved it and I loved her. Someone who had so much love to give was easy to love in return. She was a handsome, stylish woman who enjoyed dressmaking, music, poetry, laughter and people.

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I remember afternoons buying fabric and haberdashery, spreading out and marking the material with dressmakers’ chalk and cutting the pieces out with needlework shears. All the time, we would be listening to music – and Mum had a fantastic ear for music. She came from a family of gifted and sometimes professional musicians and had perfect pitch and eclectic taste. She was an alto and like most altos, her voice developed in her twenties and thirties, not as a child. She was told at school that she couldn’t sing, but in fact her voice had just not developed yet. I thought it was wonderful and it truly was.

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She really rated Kathleen Ferrier, at one time thought to be a populist singer, latterly regarded as a very accomplished soprano. The three tenors were good, she said, and Luciano Pavarotti may have been the most fêted but Placido Domingo was the quality voice. His timbre, pitch and expression, combined with quiet strength were superb. Joan Sutherland was the best antipodean singer, not Kiri Te Kanawa. Maria Callas may not have had the best pitch but was an extraordinary talent, though only when she was fatter. She admired Yehudi Menuhin but thought Stéphane Grappelli was his equal. These were the opinions of a Surrey Mum but there are few professional musicians who would disagree. She made no distinction between genres - there was only good music. We would argue about Mozart versus Bach: ‘What about the horn concerto?’ she would say - we were lucky enough to find a recording performed by Dennis Braine. What indeed. Mum ensured that I could have the musical opportunities that she never could – always the teacher enabling others.

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If we weren’t listening to or debating music, we were discussing poetry, politics or novels. When she was a child, my mother asked her parents for a book for her birthday. She told me that her father wondered why she wanted to own a book – what use was it once you had read it? She was brought up in a household with no books but somehow became a prolific reader, especially of poetry. Walter de la Mare was her favourite, Williams Blake and Wordsworth also featured highly, along with Robert Louis Stephenson. She liked poems that had rhythm and beauty. Poems where the words flowed, like music. Her children all became prolific readers too – we lived in a house packed with literature, which, like her music, was chosen because she enjoyed it not because it was worthy or won prizes. When she was little, Cathy, my daughter, never left the house without her books; Robert and I read James Herriot together, just as my Mum and I had done; Thomas loves factual books and humour. This is her legacy and one of which she would have been deservedly proud.

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Her favourite book was Samuel Butler’s Erewhon – a book all about compassion and caring for others. She was a great believer in humanity, a view which had been reinforced by observing the terrible events of the 1940s. She told me about watching Pathé news reels in the cinema and how shocked and upset she was by them, especially the liberation of the camps in 1945. She could not comprehend how anyone could do that to other human beings. The belief in the worth of everyone was written through my mother like a stick of rock. The ability to see a man or woman in trouble not a medical or social problem was learnt from her and has served me well throughout my life and career. It is no coincidence that all three of her children went into public service once we had finished our formal education. Even when she was dying, my sister Helen ensured that others were cared for. Do what is right, not what is easy, we were taught.

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Mum was not, however, a very solemn person. She was vivacious and had a wicked sense of humour. Afternoons together were always punctuated with laughter, even in her later years. Yet her humour was kind and gentle: irreverent, but never at others’ expense. She also had a number of sayings and quotes she would invariably use on particular occasions. ‘You’d pay a lot for this in a restaurant’ when we sat down to dinner; ‘Yes, dear’ in her best Joyce Grenfell voice when we said something inappropriate or overly mundane. I would like to share one of these to say goodbye to her today. It represents the happiness she found in her domestic life with us. When she drove onto our driveway after school or shopping or collecting us from activities, she would always sigh and repeat the same couplet. Although I did not know it at the time, it was the last two lines from the following poem:

 

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie:

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

 

This be the verse you ‘grave for me

Here he lies where he long’d to be:

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

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(Requiem by Robert Louis Stephenson).