Funeral:
A few weeks ago, I visited my Dad while he was very ill in hospital. He told me how sorry he felt for my Mum, who was to be left alone after half a century of companionship. I asked him if he felt sorry for himself. He replied unhesitatingly. No, I never have done.
Let it be my father’s epitaph that he always considered others before himself.
This virtue was inherited from his mother, Rachel. It was the very root of his being.
That root put forth many flowers.
There was his refusal, in fact inability, to seek gain or advancement at the expense of others.
There was his unerring gift of seeing the good in other people. I struggle to summon up a single occasion on which I heard my father disparage a friend or colleague. It was simply not his way.
Then there was his strong desire to help others, however and whenever he could, always discreetly, and never with an expectation of thanks or reciprocation.
There was his concern for the disadvantaged, deprived or abused within our society, which underpinned so much of his work.
When with my father, one sensed a man of caring, of trust, of high moral principle, and integrity.
Although he wore it lightly, with a playful smile and a twinkle in his eye, my father personified kindness.
Not long before he died, he wrote to me, and asked me not to view him as a saintly man. My father was not an easy man to disobey. So I shall not describe him in such elevated terms, but as a man who, for all his foibles, was blessed with real saintly qualities, which he used for the benefit of others, readily, generously, and without discrimination.
He loved well, and in turn was loved by those who knew him.
My father would not have wished his death to be seen as tragic.
If anything, his illness concentrated his mind and enabled him to focus still more intensely on the key comforts of his life.
He turned out some of the best and most important work of his career, even while undergoing chemotherapy. For example, only this month, the British Journal of Psychiatry has published the work of my father and his colleagues on psychotherapy for abused children.
He received the approbation of his peers, for example, through his honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and, more recently, his honorary doctorate from the Tavistock and University of East London, both of which awards meant a great deal to him.
Most importantly, he redoubled his efforts to spend significant, quality time with my Mum, Jenny and me, our spouses Andrew and Laurie, and with his 4 grandchildren, Ruthie, Max, Harry and Jessie. It is a measure of my father that he accepted more chemotherapy principally to be present at my mother’s 70th birthday last November. And he ensured that his beloved big sister Gerry, far away in Johannesburg, participated through the wonders of the telephone in all the joys, whether major or minor, of our little family.
During his illness, I have been privileged to witness at first hand a blossoming of his love for my own daughter, Jessie. And I have consolidated my own relationship with a man who bore the multiple burdens of being my father, my mentor, my moral guide, and my best friend. His gift to me was making the period of his illness among the most enriching of my life.
So my father’s death was not tragic, but its antithesis: the natural end of a good life, lived to the last. He died without rancour or resentment, without pain or recrimination, but loved, clear in his conscience, fulfilled in himself and content that he had served God by serving other people.
I do not want to appropriate my father for myself at this time. Because I know that everyone here has their own special memories of him. Dad loved and valued his family, his friends and his colleagues. He would have been humbled and dare I say a little embarrassed to see so many people here, but inwardly he would have been absolutely delighted.
My valediction is this. Goodbye Issy. Goodbye Dad. We love you. We are proud of you. We are privileged to have known you. May God bless you and keep you, for ever more.
Stone-setting:
There is a verse upon my father’s tombstone.
It is from a poem written by Wordsworth exactly 200 years ago.
It speaks to me now across the centuries.
In it, Wordsworth writes of how in childhood he saw the world in all the colours of the artist’s palette; but now, in adulthood, all was grey.
Yet there is hope here, still, in these words:
“What, though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.”
Different people find strength in different things.
In that poem, Wordsworth wrote of a child:
“A six years darling of a pigmy size
Fretted by sallies of her mother’s kisses
With light upon her from her father’s eyes.”
Wordsworth wrote these words when he was 32 years of age.
That was my father’s age when I was born.
Now I have the solace of a 6 year old child, in whom my hopes lie, as once my father’s hopes lay in me and Jen.
And so the earth has turned full circle.
My father’s epitaph is a simple one. It reads:
“A family man and a scholar.”
For my father was a simple man.
Not for him the ironic aside, the preening aphorism, the play on words, the sarcastic gibe: he wouldn’t have known how. You never found him scouring the arts pages for the latest West End hit, or the shelves for the last winner of the Booker Prize. You wouldn’t catch him discussing the comparative virtues of claret and burgundy, Stravinsky and Shostakovitch, Rover and Mercedes Benz, Hugo Boss and Giorgio Armani.
He was a man moderate of demeanour, self-effacing, generous to a fault, without known vices, utterly without ulterior motive or hidden agenda, dignified in life and death. A simple man, in the finest sense of that misused adjective.
It was that simplicity which caused my father to be liked by all who met him. What you saw was what you got. And what you saw was just one hell of a nice guy.
His course was set early. He decided to be a psychiatrist aged 13. On the night of his funeral, I confess I filched from his shelf his Grays Anatomy, bought from his earnings aged 16, a symbol of his determination at a young age to hoist himself from poverty.
To understand my father, I believe we need to see him as the child of first generation immigrants to South Africa from Eastern Europe. How scary it must have been to have been young, father dead, mother poor, in a country where poverty was a sin almost as bad as being black.
Who can blame him for taking the path of the poor immigrant, putting his head down, using scholarship as a ladder, relying on his family to secure the base as he climbed, first in South Africa, then here.
He ran his life on the twin tracks of family and scholarship. To him, everything else was a distraction as he pursued his goals with unflinching single-mindedness.
How careful he must have been not to rock the ladder or wave his arms about as he rose. Therein lies my father’s deference to authority, his great caution, whether with money or in dealings with people, his studious avoidance of confrontation, his anxiety to do the right thing. This never left him, even after he rose to the pinnacle of his profession.
I remember once my father telephoning me and telling me that he was in trouble, having given expert evidence in Court. What happened Dad? Well, the Judge, who is the leading family Judge of his generation, had delivered a judgment in which he called my father’s evidence magisterial. It was intended as a great compliment to his erudition and good judgment, but my father had assumed it must be a rebuke for haughtiness. Such was my father’s humility in his adopted country, he utterly mistook the praise meted out to him.
When I started running an environmental campaign, my father was deeply worried. Here I was taking on the politicians, demonstrating, going on telly, sailing close to the wind. But as the years went on, my father expressed his pride in what I was doing. His pride was that of a father who had given his child a secure footing in this new country, liberty to spread his wings, and the self-belief to do things his way, whether that way is right or wrong.
In his poem, Wordsworth writes of “delight and liberty, the simple creed of childhood.” That was my father’s final legacy to me and Jen: the freedom and confidence to travel to our own destinations; the ability to pass that gift to our children – the opportunity to put down roots and grow as a family in our adopted country.
Wordsworth wrote
“The child is father
of the Man
And I could wish my days to be
Bound to each to each
by natural piety.”
This can be understood on many levels
It speaks to me of the duty to give our children the chance to grow stronger than we ever grew, to achieve more than we ever attained.
My father performed way beyond the call of duty in these respects. And not only to me and Jen. He gave his life to the cause of child welfare.
The word “piety” has changed its meaning since Wordsworth wrote his enigmatic words. Now it often means sanctimony. Then, it meant devotion to God, or parents or other people. Wordsworth wished to spend his days in service to God and other people.
My father’s body has left this world. But, perhaps like you, I often think of his devotion to others: his kindness, his compassion, his love. They are qualities which we can only aspire to, but which my father taught me to value. They are qualities which I would wish to imbue in my child. This too is my father’s legacy.
For Wordsworth, the strength in what remains behind meant
“The primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering
In the faith that looks through death
In years that bring the philosophic mind.”
My prayer is this. I hope my father would have liked it.
God grant my father peace.
May we find faith that looks through death.
May we honour his memory through the hope we have in children, the love we give them and the compassion we teach them.
Amen.