My Father's Death

This is my father in 1987 in his chair at Fambridge Road. By this time he was feeling his age and had let some of his normally very high sartorial standards slip. For example, he allowed a beard to grow, something he would never have done before, and a feature of my face of which he strongly disapproved.

He still went to the pub each weekday lunchtime for a pint or two, usually to the Blue Boar where he was looked after by Inez, a lovely lady who served behind the bar. From my geography room on the second floor of the school I would sometimes see him making his way up Fambridge Road towards the pub, using a stick but still walking with determination.

His final illness didn't last long. He was moved to a downstairs room at 94 Fambridge Road where he could be cared for by my mother, and a district nurse came in to help with things like baths. As a man who was rarely ill, he never took kindly to be confined to his bed. Towards the end he was sufficiently ill to be moved to Broomfield hospital in Chelmsford where he died on 9th November 1988, in the evening. He was eighty-six. My mother and I were very aware of the moment when he died, very gently, and we said a prayer together.

This is the card which Lizzie made for on our behalf for the funeral. It shows the African Mercantile office in Kilindini Road in Mombasa which was built while he was general manager there, one of his ships at Kilindini wharf, and the house flags of the Clan Line, Harrison Line, Hall Line and Messageries Maritime, shipping companies which he had served so well in the near-forty years he had spent working on the east coast of Africa.

My mother, in my father's 'Life', wrote, "Dad had always said he wished to be cremated and so this was arranged and Canon Dunlop took the service at the Chelmsford crematorium. Gill arranged lunch beforehand for those who came from a distance, like Audrey and John, Sandy, Susan and Bobby, and also tea after the cremation. We had many letters from old friends and colleagues of Dad’s.

"Jonathan and I agreed that we would take his ashes to Caister and give them to the sea which had always been Dad’s great interest, and he had played as a boy on Caister beach for which he always had a great affection. This we arranged with Frank, and Georgie’s wife came with us to the beach and....

"....Jonathan waded into the sea and gave Dad’s ashes to the water."

The 'Frank' referred to here was my father's nephew, son of his elder brother, also called Frank, and 'Georgie' was my father's cousin - both lived in Caister. It was November and bitterly cold on the beach so we retired to the Ship Inn, which....

....seemed very appropriate as my father had always loved his pubs, and I have many happy memories of enjoying a beer or two with him. He's seen here in the Cinque Ports in Hastings, one of his favourite pubs.