Monday.

 

As you can see from the above photo, today we went to a funeral. It was the funeral of an old friend, Arthur Runnacles. An old friend in every sense - he was ninety two. I knew him because, for the thirty five years that I sang with a male voice choir, Arthur was the piano accompanist to the choir. Although really a church organist, he was a superb accompanist. He had an impish sense of fun, and would occasionally deliberately play the wrong introduction to a piece of music we were about to sing, then at the the last moment change seamlessly to the correct piece and lead us, provided the conductor had kept up with him, into the right song. Seven years ago our choir was invited to take part in a series of concerts in Gothenburg (in Sweden) and Arthur, despite then being eighty-five years old, very sportingly accompanied us. At one concert the organ loft was at the top of a vertical ladder, and Arthur scrambled up it like a squirrel. Before the second world war Arthur besides being the church organist also kept the village Post Office. When war was declared he enlisted and saw action all over the place, including driving a tank in North Africa. After the war he went back to being the village Postman (and Postmaster) for the rest of his working life. He and Jean were approaching their sixty eighth wedding anniversay. He was, in every sense, a gentle man. About fifteen members of his old choir turned up at the funeral to give him a rousing send off, and afterwards a lady churchgoer said to me how lovely it was to hear so many robust male voices increasing and deepening the usual volume of the hymns. It was a pleasure, and a privilege, to have known him.