Dad's Memorial Service

The period after dad's death passed in a blur of administrative stuff.  After someone dies they have to be killed bureaucratically and this takes a lot of effort.

In contrast the Memorial Service came together quite easily.  Dad's local social club was the obvious choice and booking and organising the catering was straightforward and dad had given me a list of people to invite.  In the end there were about thirty people, including dad's principal carers which I was very pleased about.

One thing I really wanted was a bugler to play the last post and to my surprise the Royal Marines provided one free of charge.  Bugler Gillian Forde, who was very serious and very professional, played beautifully and then ate a vast amount of sandwiches before driving back to Portsmouth.

Rosemary operated the lights and Sue controlled the music.  Which made me feel very supported.  It was lovely too to have our friend Claude there, all the way from Puglia.

The text of my tribute to dad appears in the blog post below.  At the end we were left with the tin box, containing dad's ashes, which had pride of place on his dining room table.