I decided it was time to take the reference to my dad's memorial service off the home page of my blog.  Instead, I've put the text of the ceremony, plus a few pictures, into a blog post dated 14th March 2015, the date of the memorial. As I was doing it I got to thinking that this was yet another stage in moving on from his death and that by consigning the text to the back pages of my blog I was conducting a kind of burial.  There is such a vast amount of stuff on the world wide web now that most of it is effectively buried, because the population of readers is so small compared to the volume of reading material. I think this point is often lost in the debate about how we live in a surveillance society.  There may be a CCTV camera on practically every street corner in the UK, but if there is no one monitoring them except maybe a bored and over-worked security guard nodding off in a control room, then what does it matter?  I suppose the answer to that is it depen...

It's more than six months since I last wrote up my blog. I've thought a lot about why I stopped and it's definitely connected to dad's death and my leaving of my father's house, physically and emotionally.  At one level I never wanted dad to read my blog, but in another way it actually was for him.  I was accounting for my actions to my parents, like I'd done throughout my life.  Do we all do this or am I queer?  An issue I've come to reflect on in a more general sense since dad died. I shall tell the story of the last few months in pictures. In September 2015 I moved from dad's bungalow to temporary digs in Lincoln with Harry and Zack and their delightful dog Oscar, with whom I enjoyed many excellent runs along the banks of the River Witham. In November Sue finished her contract in Borneo and returned to Puglia, where after a gap of some years we finally did our olive harvest together again.  Also that month I completed a Humanist weddings c...

On 3rd September I locked the kitchen door to dad's bungalow for the last time and dropped the key through the letterbox for the new owners.  The last two weeks had been very hectic clearing the house, finalising my new digs in Lincoln and doing all the paperwork associated with selling a home.  One of the things I'll miss is looking out on his garden and it's suburban wildlife. Oddly, in those last few days I'd had a regular guest - my friend Patrick, who is doing some work in Doncaster - and it was good to have some company.  I guess this is another stage in the process of grieving for dad and letting go.  If I'm honest I have been hiding out a bit surrounded by his stuff and it's been strangely comforting. In a final irony the pear tree in the back garden, which he tried so hard to kill a few years back, is now groaning under the weight of fruit.  In the last few days of my occupation I munched away at one or two a day and I've taken a couple wi...

For some time the junk in dad's house has been weighing me down and I've told several people it's my intention to release much of it "back into the wild".  Dad loved going to boot fairs, especially the big one at the old Hemswell airbase, north of Lincoln. So, having hired a van, I set off for Hemswell at 5.00 am this morning loaded with pictures, telescopes, a "decorative" ship's wheel and all manner of miscellaneous stuff. In some ways it felt sad letting his old junk go for low prices (no one wants to pay much at boot fares), but in others it was a very positive experience as lots of people went away with smiles on their faces, giving me the feeling that some of dad's old things would be cherished anew. At about 2pm, as the fare was thinning out, I sold everything that was left to a dealer with a pitch a few metres away for the princely sum of £15.  But overall I'd collected over £300 and was able to leave with an empty van and a l...

I got a call yesterday from young Jamie at the estate agents to say that the people that came to view the house last Friday had made an offer.  After a little haggling we settled on a figure and so I hope it is done, for the second time of asking. As ever, it's a question of waiting.  I seem to be doing a lot of that again these days, including waiting for funeral directors to 'phone - it's all gone quiet since I got back from Puglia.  I feel a like a prisoner in dad's little bungalow and that the new buyers are coming to spring me. Peering out at the garden this evening I notice that the pear tree dad tried to kill with creosote has another bumper crop and that the wooden eagle that sits on plinth nearby has fallen in the strong winds and that its paint is beginning to peel.  Hopefully I'll be gone before the fruit has ripened ...

I bit the bullet and put dad's house up for sale last Friday.  An older couple came round on Tuesday and found the place "charming" and within two hours had offered the full asking price.  Sometimes you just don't know how you feel about something 'till it happens and in this case my first feeling was delight. Faced with the prospect of getting out of dad's bungalow I dreamed of going back to Italy and leaving behind my celebrancy work for now.  Later I put things in perspective and began to see my celebrancy work in this area as a kind of apprenticeship to be continued for now, but not indefinitely. Today I felt very sad and disorientated as I looked around the bungalow and thought that in the forseeable future I would be leaving it and with it many memories of my father.  He lived here for over twenty years and for much of that time was actually pretty happy.  The couple who are buying, assuming the sale goes through are at a similar stage of life as ...

I bought myself a new gps watch last week.  I find the act of going out running or cycling and recording a track which I can then upload and look at on a map strangely magical.  I started doing this when Sue and I were in Borneo, where there were so few maps or signs that it was actually a good way of getting a picture of where I really had been. I've got a busyish day today so I decided to get a bike ride in this morning.  It was cold and bright as I cycled around the flat surrounding countryside, past bright yellow fields of oilseed rape and along dykes.  At one point a young deer broke cover and bounded along in a field next to me.  Eventually I cycled into the middle of Lincoln down the Foss Dyke and into the Brayford Pool before returning to dad's bungalow. I guess I should stop calling it that, I suppose it's my bungalow now, though it doesn't feel like it.  I feel I'm camping here while I finalise dad's affairs, which is nearly done now.  ...

It's been a couple of weeks since Sue and I scattered dad's ashes and she is back in Borneo and I'm still in Lincoln.  I've been gradually emptying out his little bungalow of some of his more idiosyncratic personal touches.  Like the clocks everywhere, in wooden boxes with fake pendulums and cheap quartz movements.  Maybe they were his idea of a joke about time passing.  The oddest things make me tearful, such as the plastic model of the USS Constitution that has stood on the living room window ledge for years.  He made it when his hands still worked properly and it must have taken a lot of time and care.  Now it's all dusty and some of its spars are broken, it has no value and I've moved it into the garage to await its fate, probably the recycling bin.  All that time and effort for nothing. Hanging up my washing I noticed that the pear tree was in bud.  A few years ago dad tried to "make a feature" of it by painting it in creosote and sti...

Sue and I made our way to South Dock Marina on the morning of Wednesday 19th March to meet our old friend Pedro Lewis, who had laid on a workboat.  It was a good place to start as the marina is on the site of the old Surrey Commercial Docks where dad guarded the gates for much of his PLA police career. We headed out onto the river at about 10.00am with the tide still making.  The thirty or so minutes down to Greenwich passed quickly as we talked of people and boats we had known, some now dead or sunk.  As we headed downriver the sun began to shine. I remembered the spot where dad and I had scattered mum ashes twenty two years before and gave Pedro directions: "its just after the entrance to the Greenwich foot tunnel on the Isle of Dogs side, where you can see up through the naval college to the Queen's House and the Royal Observatory. On reaching the spot Pedro stemmed the tide while I opened the little tin box containing dad's ashes at the stern of the workboat...

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. ...

(Opening music: the “One Fine Day” aria from Madame Butterfly sung by Maria Callas) Opening Words Welcome everybody to this memorial service for my dad, Douglas Jean Duckworth.   Dad died of pneumonia on 8 th February 2015 in Lincoln County Hospital. We discussed what he wanted in the way of a send off a few months ago.   He decided that he would like to be cremated anonymously, followed by a Humanist memorial service at a venue near his home.   He liked the idea of the cremation being anonymous, because having been to Lincoln Crem. for the funerals of his first wife, my mum, Eva and his second wife Phyllis, he had no affection for the place and it pleased him to think that this would put more money behind the bar for his friends to enjoy. He also chose the music that was played earlier.   It’s the “One Fine Day” aria from Madame Butterfly.   The “Humanist” bit was mainly to please me, as I’m a Humanist funeral celebrant and he probably t...