Eulogy to a wonderful Dad As a regular listener to the radio 4 programme “Great Lives” I have always been struck by the power of the present tense when used to pay homage to some notable figure who has just passed away. It always seems to give the subject some sense of permanence and appropriateness to the present day. And so today I speak of one such great life, that of our dear Dad who although has gone, the legacy he leaves will always mean that us for a family he will remain rooted in the present. Born 86 years ago, he’s come to be regarded as a synonym of all the good things of a byegone era: steadfastness, high principles, success through hard work. And for Wendy and me, Dad has always been the wind beneath our wings and taught us from a very early age the importance and value of education, independence and duty. Qualities that today are rare to find in one human being. He came from a modest working class background – the only child of young sweethearts who married at 18 but found out that they had to wait until my grandmother was nearly 40 for Kenneth Francis to arrive in their lives! You can imagine he became the centre of their universe! By the age of 11 in winning a scholarship to Great Yarmouth grammar school it was apparent that his success in life was just beginning. But as was typical of that generation, without the necessary funds he was unable to go to university but that did not deter him from shaking off the restrictions of Norfolk life to pursue a career overseas. Spurred on by our mother who he had met at 18, he set sail for Bombay to take up his first post at May & Baker. What pluck and courage that first step must have been for a young man of 22. Just one year older than you Rupert. He left his beloved fiancée, family and security behind to undertake an 8000 mile journey at a time when the world seemed a lot larger and less travelled than it is today. Such was his desire to make his own mark on a world unknown not only by his immediate family but one unknown to most men more privileged than himself And so began an initial overseas career spanning some 15 years moving from Bombay to Singapore and Hong Kong before taking up the General Manager role in Bangkok where he married our mother and provided a fabulous growing environment for the early years of us his 2 daughters. But a eulogy is more than just a catalogue of what he did and where and when he did it (though what an illustrious set of stats that provides!). Our deep love and respect for him is much more than that. It’s about all the qualities he represents and which some of them we recognise as being passed on through us. Without doubt he provided for me personally the building blocks to enable me to create my own career from a shaky start. I didn’t win a scholarship at 11. No I went one step further. I failed the 11+. Twice! I well recall a Stephen Dedalus moment ( from James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) when shortly after this I found myself wedged in a car with him and his car syndicate and felt the palpable shame as he shared with his colleagues the deep disappointment that he felt having sacrificed the enchanted Bangkok life in return for a better education for his girls… I had let him down. Word has it that I returned to my mother desperately upset that he had seen me as a bit of a failure but it did provide me with the catalyst to turn my life around which I did by getting to a top university and securing a good career with L’Oreal but a lot of that was down to you Dad by providing the impetus to replace that failure with success. His overseas life also afforded him the opportunity of great friends , many of whom are here today. Thank you for your support. For those that had the privilege of knowing my mother they will know of her consummate skills as a party host often relegating dad unintentionally to Mr Sylvia Allen but they made a great team and certainly no party was ever complete without the punctuation of Dad’s quiz contributions. He was such an inveterate quiz lover and thanks to him all the family are now fully paid up devotees of both Eggheads and Pointless. His 2 favourite programmes that he managed to enjoy almost to the end of his life. The last 18 months have been very testing times for all the family particularly for Wendy and me. It seems now that very few people knew that he had medically controlled prostate cancer for the previous 12 years and had became known by his assigned oncologist at the time as a “medical marvel”. Such was the dignity and privacy of the man. In fact until the cancer had mestastisised, he had enjoyed a very healthy life. During the recent times Wendy and I have been able to reflect with him on the family life he so successfully provided: yes he was a strict father in our teens (but is there any other way to be?), yes he was hopelessly impractical and clumsy and we all know who has inherited those family traits don’t we Rupert? But the heated discussions around mealtimes produced for us 2 invaluable outcomes: good communication skills and the ability to sensibly argue a point (our dear mother had a tendency to default to the personal/emotional side but Dad was able to redress the balance with a more rational point of view!). Wendy and I would comment to each other that in growing up we believed we had enjoyed a normal family life but in retrospect it now seems it was far from normal: it was much better than that. The dynamics between each family member and the facility to talk with ease about everything has made it a super normal family and we have you our dearest Dad to thank for that! You gave us the wings to fly. More recently as we felt the pain of impending mortality we have cried and cried but we have also laughed and Dad did have such a biting sense of humour. It is that bequest of his that will sustain us for as long as it takes. We have all come here together today in the most fitting way possible. We have brought Dad back home to Stock, once the heart of his social life with our mother and where he returned alone for a short while to resume life here as a worshipper in this church and to play bridge with his trusty friends. It seems only right and proper to reunite him with our mother under the shade of the apple tree in this lovely village churchyard. My abiding picture of my relationship with him is best summed up in a cherished photo I have of me sitting on his knee as an enquiring 2 year old looking up at him. The speech bubble at the time could have read “Now just because there’s a new baby in the family, don’t forget about me!”. Over the years this has been replaced by a more adult interpretation. I have always looked up to him; he has always been my loving father but he has also been my mentor, my financial advisor, my moral compass. For me a true giant of a figurehead. God Bless you dear Dad as you go on your final journey but you go with peace and confidence as you have gone through all your journeys in life. We love you.