Pat and David

One of the nicest pictures we could find. Doesn't really need any words...

Family life

David was a Big Man, larger than life, but especially a big family man - adored by all of us.  He was a lovely person all round and a great father.   We couldn't have wished for a more generous and indulgent dad, or a more happy, secure and stimulating family to have grown up in. Nothing was ever too much trouble, and everything was always fun and enthusiastic... even attempts at DIY.  Pat and David had just passed their 5oth wedding anniversary. Though sadly he spent that one in hospital, they lived a great life together and lived it well. They have been like two peas in a pod and completely inseparable through thick and thin.

Holidays

Pat and David went about retirement with some gusto.  David became his own internet travel agent and they were soon travelling to the finest cities of Europe, often with their friends Pat and Ray Jones (pictured in Lucerne in 2006), sometime just together.

Missions

David loved a 'mission'. Something that just had to be done and that only he could do.  My first memory of this - going with him to take his father Tegwyn to work at his tailors in Manchester each Saturday morning - then returning to a grateful family with mixed biscuits and chippolata sausages from Lewis's.  Other missions included.... 

Malta

He and mum bought a lovely apartment in Qawra in Malta - cool, solid and quiet, with an amazing view and location.  It was where we had some of our best holidays: lying in the sun, playing in the pool, tennis at the posh hotels (the Dolman and Hyperion as it was then) and sitting on the balcony looking out on to St Paul's bay and the islands across the bay, eating delicious fresh food. Some more memories...

Christmas

At its peak, the family Christmas reached 19 around the table - and I remember David presiding over a turkey the size of an ostrich with a big knife and reserving a leg for himself.  David's Big Job at Xmas was always the same: find a table big enough to accommodate everyone, go and get it on Xmas morning from the office, remove as many doors as necessary (and a few more) to get it in, assemble it and lay the table.  Next big thing was greeting the guests with 'champagne cocktail' - actually a glass of something fizzy with a sugar cube in it.   There then followed the serious part...

Camping

Camping holidays were always enjoyable - but there was always unseen drama and struggle behind the fun.  At the epicentre of all the trouble was a massive frame tent of such awesome complexity it was never assembled the same way twice and sometimes not assembled at all.  In a wind, it took on a malevolent life of its own.  That tent was possibly one of the greatest struggles of David's life - man against canvas - and he never beat it, despite colour-coding the frame, cutting notches in the joints, reassembling on a new design etc etc. That b***** tent was never tamed.

Funny

He was a very good conversationalist and could be very amusing indeed, with a great line in banter, teasing and cutting one-liners.  I wish I could remember the jokes, limericks, funny songs and bon mots, but I can't.  I do remember one good line though...

In 1991 we were walking through Imperial College -I was doing my Masters there and he and mum had come to visit.   We passed a student travel agency called 'Academic Travel'...  he pointed and said:

Does that mean they don't actually go?

I liked it anyway...!

Football

Manchester United, of course.  And we used to actually go - me and my Dad, from 1971 onwards I think.  We had season tickets in the 'cantilever stand' as that marvel of pillar-free stadium engineering was then known.  Most of all there was George Best - we idolised him. Almost the last thing I said to my dad - 35 years later - was to remind him of Best dancing through his opponents from deep in midfield then lobbing the goalie from the edge of the area.  With pride we wore the badge of honour that separates the true United fans from the arrivistes, and that is that we followed United down to what was then the second division in 1975  after years of grim relegation battles with Birmingham City and the like.  How things have changed....

Cars

David liked his cars big - a big man needs a big car... he had big Fords - the Zodiac, the Zephyr, the Granada.  I especially remember him coming home with an Red/Orange Ford Granada like the one pictured... seeing it driving up Hill Drive and thinking 'wow, what a cool big car' before realising he was behind the wheel.  I was so proud and excited - he definitely had the best car I could imagine.  

Computers

David grew up with the information age and was in at the start. From the hulking steam-powered calculators of the dawn of electronic computing in the 1960s to the modern day internet-based world, David was involved and enthusiastic. His career took in some of the great names of IT like Honeywell and Sperry Univac, and then his own company Management Co-ordinations Ltd (MCL) and its Microl brand (we still have the merchandise).

Round Table

At the funeral, Mike Biggin reminded me what an important role that Round Table had played in David's life... and how much he had put into it.    David was the inaugural chairman of the Bollin Valley Round Table and Pat was in the parallel 'Ladies' Circle'.  It was basically a group of great friends determined to live well and have a lot of fun - Barry & Hilary Tidey, George & Barbara Jones, Mike & Judy Biggin, Tony & Eileen Wilcox, Colin & Midge Nelson, John & Moira Booth...

...all very merry and memorable.

Politics

David was a Labour man through and through.  He'd been working as a volunteer for Tom Levitt, the MP for High Peak - but his political enthusiasm for Labour goes back to his earliest days.  He embraced the New Labour cause, though with some trepidation and doubt about Iraq. He had no time for the Blair detractors and self-defeating squabbling within Labour's own ranks.  He was loyal and committed - but not unquestioningly or without concern for the party's longer term.

A word about David's death...

We had all been called to his bed side in intensive care back in 1998, where it was touch and go and we looked like losing him.  In fact he pulled through that first episode and lived a pretty good life for the next twelve years. We see those twelve years as a great bonus - time that we might easily have been denied.  When he finally died on 16 April 2010, he was at home, being cared for by Pat and having spent some good quality time with his family and close friends.  When it happened, it was a peaceful end - slipping away calmly while sitting on the sofa in his own house, in front of his own telly, and with his own dear wife Pat close by.  So despite the pain of his loss, for much of this we are grateful and glad.

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One year on - at David's commemorative bench

This is the bench that marks the spot of one of David's favourite walks - along a flat path that follows a disused rail line above the Goyt Valley in Derbyshire.  The photo was taken on 17 April 2011 - one year and one day after David died. More photos here. Location map in full post or here.