Life & Death – Skat's Chat

A Tribute to my Uncle Wilf – a hero of The Evacuation of Dunkirk.

It has been said that a person only truly dies once somebody mentions their name for the last time. When we visited the Tutankahmen Exhibition in London in February, I remember this phrase coming up as we walked around. Many of the pharaohs erased the names and monuments of their predecessors in the hope that people would forget them.

Uncle Wilf would have been 106 if he was alive today. I never met him or even knew of his existence until about 15 years ago. But this blog is to keep his memory alive. My mum showed me a letter she had received from the Museum of D-Day Aviation in Shoreham about her brother Wilf. This blog is published 80 years to the day that Wilf died. The researcher at the museum found that Wilf was a member of 43 Squadron and he wrote

43 Squadron was a front line fighter squadron flying Hurricanes and rated the best, and was to give cover during the Dunkirk Evacuation.Your brother was killed flying back after another sortie – the third that day – by a sneak and chance attack by German fighters and his Hurricane N2615, crashed 4 miles south of Shoreham. His body washed ashore at Shoreham on June 15th…..his body was sent for burial at the family’s request to Middlesbrough

We have just celebrated the 80th anniversary of the Dunkirk Evacuation between 26th and 31st May 1940. We don’t know how many sorties my uncle flew during that time, but we know that only 9 days later he was dead. He was just 26 years old.I never knew why my mum would get upset on Remembrance Day but I think it was because she remembered the sacrifice of her brother. When we were clearing my parents’ house after dad died in 2017 I found a note of a talk mum had given to her local church on Remembrance Day when she spoke about her brother Wilf. She had written

I have in my possession a little book that was among Wilf’s returned belongings and given to him in 1931 by the leader of the Young Men’s Class at our church, called ‘The Greatest Thing in the World’….It is based on 1 Corinthians Chapter 13: The Greatest Thing being LOVE…I never heard my mother utter a word of bitterness, and just after the war my brother who was 17yrs old died suddenly of painless pneumonia. She used to say ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.’ It was only when I had sons of my own that I realised how she must have felt. When they went to university/college I missed them but reminded myself that at least I wasn’t sending them to war.

I am one of those sons, and I had talked with mum a few years before she died, about the letter from the museum. She started to cry. She told me that she loved her older brother and looked forward to the times he would come home from the RAF and play with her. She called him ‘my Wilfy’. He bounced her on his knee. It must have been difficult for a seven year old to comprehend what had happened when she learned of his death. Then to lose another brother a few years later, a week after her 12th birthday, was hard. I am not certain but I think her dad, my grandad who I also never met, died as a result of being gassed in the Great War. All three are buried with grandma at a family plot in Linthorpe Cemetery. After mum died we took dad to try and find the grave, but didn’t succeed. I have found a document in mum’s possessions about it and know the plot number so will go and put flowers on it one day.

Wilf left Middlesbrough and his job as a ‘Storeman’ aged 16 to join the RAF as an Aircraft Apprentice, or as a ‘boy’ 5ft 3ins with a 31 inch chest as his record states. By the time he was commissioned as an 18 year old man he had grown in height by 2 inches and put an extra half inch on his chest. I have a copy of his service record or ‘Service and Discharge’ as it is called. This was all the family got as there were so many killed at that time, Commanding Officers didn’t have time to write details of how their men died. I am not sure grandma ever knew, and it was only mum visiting the museum, on the way to a holiday, that led to the research being done. I know she didn’t get anywhere at first and it was only on receiving a follow-up letter asking for more details, that the story came to light.

Wilf was trained as a Flight Rigger, someone who worked on the airframe and cables, not the engines. He rose through the ranks and started a year’s pilot training due to a shortage of pilots as the build up to war started. He passed the training on New Year’s Eve 1939. He was with several other squadrons in Hornchurch in Essex and then Manston in Kent. In the run up to what would become The Battle of Britain he was posted to 25 Squadron based at North Weald, Essex, using a new type of radar for night interception. As losses of fighter pilots became high, pilots like Wilf in lighter bomber squadrons were moved to fill the gaps. Wilf’s final posting was to 43 Squadron based at Tangmere in West Sussex where later Wing Commander Douglas Bader would be stationed in 1941.

I am now the keeper of Uncle Wilf’s possessions and there is also Bible inscribed ‘With best wishes from mother to Wilf 1930‘. I suspect it was for his 16th birthday, or perhaps as he left to join the RAF. Mum’s family, like my dad’s were Methodists and worshiped at Woodlands Road church. Mum and dad met at the youth club and were married at the church. We hoped to visit Shoreham to see the rose that the museum promised to plant in Wilf’s honour, but that will have to wait until next year – once the current ‘war’ against Covid-19 has ended.

Rest in peace Uncle Wilf. We will remember you.

Life & Death Part 2. Walking in the light, a life well lived, three orphans & time to move on…

Our mum used to say ‘..as Methodists we have faith and don’t believe in superstition’. We had no problem holding dad’s funeral on Friday 13th January. It turned out to be a day that started with a light covering of snow, but this didn’t settle and we were able to follow the hearse from Thornton Dale to the Crematorium in Scarborough. On the journey there, and also on our return, we saw a complete and very bright rainbow. Adam, our funeral director and fellow Methodist, commented – ‘Seeing a sign like that, makes you realise all will be well’.

Light also had a part to play the day dad died at the end of December. We had been staying for the week at a cottage on the North York Moors, with my wife’s family to celebrate Christmas. It was a beautiful spot with views over the hills & valleys of the moors. We enjoyed stunning sunrises and on many nights the sky was so clear we could see an endless canopy of stars. With the only artificial light from houses in the village and RAF Fylingdales early warning station, it was a ‘dark sky’ area.

sunrise-over-fylingdales-27-dec-2016 — Sunrise over Fylingdales 27 Dec 2016

stars-over-fylingale-27-dec-2016 — Stars over Fylingdales 27 Dec 2016

Dad was nearing death as the result of his Parkinson’s causing an inability to swallow two weeks’ previously. After a short spell in hospital – beside the crematorium that he would return to – dad was allowed to go back to his care home in Pickering for palliative care. Our cottage was only a 30 minute drive away, so we visited him several times. My younger brother, Andrew, and his family called in to see him on their way to relatives in the south.

The night before dad passed away I set off to drive the short journey, but a heavy fog had come down. It was obvious after taking 10 minutes to get less than a mile that it was a dangerous journey without streetlights or markings at the edge of the roads. A phone call to the home confirmed that it was they same there. I had already visited dad that morning and now he was settled down for a good night’s sleep. I returned to the cottage.

Next morning I woke up early; the fog had cleared and through the skylight a host of bright stars shone in. Lying in the quiet stillness I thought about dad and prayed to God that if it was His will then it was time to let go, and for dad to pass on to his next life. I also remembered my mum who had died four years ago of a sudden heart attack. Dad had missed her terribly and took about two years to get over his grief. Recently, in a cruel twist brought on by his dementia, dad had started asking us when we visited if we had seen mum, as she hadn’t been to visit him for a while. If we told dad the truth he looked shocked and said it was too much to bear. We decided not to lie but changed the subject and distracted him with something else.

As I got up and went down for breakfast, the sun was just coming up over Fylingdales and the sky was a beautiful pale orange colour. The air was still and a few tufts of high, white cloud were visible. Through the large glass kitchen doors overlooking the garden & fields of sheep, a tawny owl flew past slowly and gently settled out of sight among a clump of grasses. A rabbit hopped across the gravel driveway and under the wooden gate to the field. Four female pheasants came onto the lawn to feed on the breadcrumbs and nuts we had put out. A robin and sparrow sat on top of the wooden table where we had put the remaining food. The place was teeming with life and the beauty of nature.

There was no mobile phone signal so we had been using wi-fi and WhatsApp to communicate. We finished breakfast and were packing up to leave, as we were due out by 10am, when Anne Marie (the owner and nurse manager of the care home) sent me a message asking me to call on WhatsApp. I managed to speak to her long enough to tell me that dad had passed away a few minutes before. I heard her say it was peaceful then the signal went and I couldn’t phone back. Driving up the half mile farm track to the main road I managed to find a good signal to call Andrew. Anne Marie had called him already, and we shared a short silence and a sense of relief that it was over. I called the home to say I would visit after we left the cottage.

As I made the journey to Pickering the sun was rising higher against blue sky & reflecting off the rail tracks in the deep wooded valley of the preserved steam railway that curves through the moors. I passed the end of a narrow track off the road down which lie the ashes of dad’s brother and wife, overlooking the valley and the moors beyond.

The closer I got to town the fog, light at first, got thicker so that by the time I got to the care home it was dark, damp and cold. As Anne Marie took me to see dad she told me that she had checked on him at 25 to 9 and he was sleeping peacefully and five minutes later she came back and he had died. The night shift hourly care records all said ‘settled and sleeping quietly’. Dad’s earthly life had come to a peaceful and pain-free end. Anne Marie confided that when she awoke that morning she too had prayed the same words as me. When she had opened the window to ‘let his soul free’ as they do in many hospitals and care homes, I like to think that dad escaped the darkness of the town and soared up to see his brother and sister-in-law at that beautiful spot I passed on the way in. A place where the sky was blue, the sun shining and the birds singing. All would be stillness and peace.

Anne Marie gave me dad’s Bible to read whilst I sat with him. A bookmark was placed at the first chapter of John’s first letter; a section headed The Word of life, walking in the light.

God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

There was a Post-it note in dad’s writing of two other passages about faith and actions and helping those in need. A further bookmark was at Psalm 121 which we had used in mum’s service. It seemed that I had been given the readings and theme for dad’s service of remembrance.

Dad’s was the first dead body I have seen. When I kissed the top of his head it was cold, but holding his hand it was still warm. I sat quietly listening to the hymns which had been playing all week at his bedside. I cried a few tears, but the overwhelming feeling was one of gratefulness & peace.

I am usually a blubbering wreck at funerals, even for people I barely know and who have been ill for a long time. I was always amazed that the family could stay so calm. However, having spent two weeks planning the service and writing dad’s tribute, for the service back at Thornton Dale Chapel, after the shorter one at the crematorium, it seemed natural to be calm and speak joyfully of dad’s life of faith and service. We shared lots of stories and some jokes with his church friends and family from near and far. This continued over lunch afterwords.

I was given a book for Christmas written by one of my cousin’s friends Rosalind Bradley titled ‘A Matter of Life and Death’, consisting of 60 short passages by various people sharing their experiences of death. It asks us to treat death as a natural part of life. To think, talk and plan for it, so that when it comes – which it certainly will – we and those who know us can go through the process in a peaceful, ordered way. I have yet to finish it, but some useful words found already are;

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come. Rabindranath Tagore.

Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfilment. Dag Hammarskjold’s words as chosen by Arrchbishop Desmond Tutu in his foreword.

Our dead watch over us from inside our hearts. We talk to them, they talk to us, and their love and wisdom bless us. Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg.

The picture at the start of this blog is we three brothers who can now be classed as orphans, standing next to ‘mum’s tree’ at Wilton in front of the small Anglican church. We buried mum’s ashes under a flowering cherry we bought to replace one that had died. The bungalow in the background was where mum & dad spent 24 years together in retirement. Mum loved her garden so now looks over that and the Wolds nearby. Dad will be joining mum in the spring. The photo was taken after the funeral service and the flowers are the cross from dad’s coffin and another wreath from our cousins (whose mum’s and dad’s ashes are in the valley overlooking the railway and moors near Fylingdales).

As we said at the end of dad’s tribute:

…we join our cousins in becoming ‘orphans’, we also join them as living testimony to the care and love of our parents.

The fact that we hopefully are contributing in a positive way to our local community and society, being aware of social injustice & poverty, the needs of our neighbours near and far, means we will continue to be a tribute to them.

And that love and care will continue as our families grow from one generation to the next.

We all need to move on to the next stage in our lives, to let go of, but not forget the past.

Life & Death – Part 1

Someone once said that football is not a case of life & death; it is more important than that – or did they? I have watched the video of former Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly’s interview in 1991. After saying how, for his whole life, he had put his heart & soul into football to the extent that his family suffered, the interviewer asks if he regrets that. This is his exact reply:

‘ Yes, oh I regret it very much, yes. Somebody said football’s a matter of life and death to you. I said listen it’s much more important than that.’

When he left the game after resigning in 1974, Shankly suffered depression and ended up a sad figure. Going to the training ground at Melwood, he would talk to the players, and even started trying to take training sessions. He was barred and died of a heart attack at the age of 68. A fit man who exercised regularly and was teetotal, Shankly succumbed not to the usual excesses. He died of a broken heart; the result of an addiction to football.

Our home is in the North West. For the past week Liverpool, and the families of ‘The 96’, have been on regional news programmes as well as the national ones. Three weeks ago I watched the Europa League match when Liverpool came back from 3-0 down against Dortmund to win 4-3 in the last minute. The media were full of the usual quotes about the game being one ‘that will be talked about for years to come’. I love it when sport produces such moments, but mostly they are fleeting events and ‘real life’ resumes. The following day at Anfield was the final memorial service for the victims of the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster. 27 years after ‘real death’ had visited Liverpool.

On Wednesday 27 April 2016 coverage of the ‘unlawfully killed’ verdict by the jury at the Hillsborough inquest was constantly on our news bulletins. At last the families had the truth they craved and the fans were cleared of contributing to the disaster. It will be some time yet before they get justice.

The very next evening the attention of Liverpool fans returned to football matters. As I started to write this blog, the dulcet tones of former player Mark Lawrenson and Radio 5 Live commentator Ian Dennis were on my laptop. The stadium this time was Estadio El Madrigal the home of Spanish team Villarreal in the first leg of the semi-final. The match ended 1-0 to Villarreal with a goal in the last minute. Fans phoned into the post-game show and mentioned the comeback against Dortmund.

Ten years ago I met my friend Mark at Birch Services on the M62 after we had both done a day’s work. We drove the 110 miles to the Riverside Stadium, home of our team Middlesbrough. Boro were 1-0 down to Romanian side Steaua Bucharest from the away first leg in the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup. In the quarter-final we had come back from 3-0 down against Swiss side FC Basle to win 4-3. The previous Sunday we had been at Villa Park to watch us lose in the semi-final of the FA Cup. Being only 1-0 down, the chatter amongst the fans walking with us to the ground was of a real possibility of reaching the final in Eindhoven.

Manager Steve McClaren, players Gareth Southgate, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, and Stewart Downing (now back at his home town club), will be names known to today’s football fans. Andrew Taylor, now with Reading, also played that night. After 20 minutes we were 2-0 down on the night, 3-0 on aggregate. Surely it couldn’t happen again? Well it did. Like Liverpool we scored 4 goals, the final one in the last minute a diving header from our young Italian striker Massimo Maccarone At the final whistle there were grown men in tears and, as well as Mark, I hugged a complete stranger, an enormous, bearded, bear of a man from the seat in front of me. The players came out after 15 minutes to warm down and we celebrated all over again for what seemed like an hour. Mark and I got home at 2am and were back in work early on the Friday.

The local radio commentator for that game was Alastair Brownlee, or Ali as he was known. Ali had been a fan long before he was on the radio and was unashamedly biased. His excitement that night reached its peak. His screams at the final whistle echoed those of the Norwegian TV commentator after his country had beaten England 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier in 1981. That night it was;

‘Lord Nelson! Lord Beaverbrook! Sir Winston Churchill! Sir Anthony Eden! Clement Attlee! Henry Cooper! Lady Diana! Maggie Thatcher – can you hear me, Maggie Thatcher! Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!’

Ali’s slightly more weird shouts in the clip below are fuzzy. As well as his passion when Boro score the goals, after the final whistle sounds listen out for:

‘Boro have struck a stake to the heart of Dracula’s boys…’
‘It’s Eindhoven! Eindhoven!’
‘One of the most glorious nights in the history of football. We go back to 1876, the Infant Hercules, fired out of the foundries of Teesside, mined out of the Eston Hills, are roaring all the way to Eindhoven in the UEFA Cup Final.’
‘It’s party, party, party. Everyone round to my house for a ‘Parmo’!

Ali died on Valentine’s Day this year aged 56 – the same age as me. He told his listeners that he had bowel cancer in November 2015. Football and ‘The Boro’ were his life, he did a lot of charity work and promoted Teesside and the people. The fans think promotion back to The Premier League will be a fitting legacy for this season. I can’t be certain, but I think Ali, ‘Mrs B’ (as he called his wife in commentary) and his daughters would give up all that for a few more years of life.

The ‘death of the steel industry’ came to Teesside this year with closure of the modern Redcar Plant. Seemingly to our government the one in Port Talbot is more important. The estimated £200 Million boost to the local economy that promotion to The Premier League will bring, could help ease the pain of the thousands of families affected. Boro are a club whose links to the local community are strong and important.

Boro went on to lose the 2006 final 4-0 against Sevilla. If Liverpool do indeed stage a comeback in the return leg then I hope they win the final. However, Sevilla could be their opponents too.

These days I would not drive overnight to a game, and given a chance would put time with my family first. I think I can speak for Mark and say he feels the same about his young family.

Some things are more important than football – life & death for instance. Just ask the families of the 96.