Family funeral

Kath and Rhiannon arrived yesterday afternoon, so that we could all travel together across to Bleadon Hill outside Weston super Mare for brother-in-law Geoff's funeral in the lovely 14th century Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul. Owain joined us in the evening and we went out to supper together at Cibo's in Pontcanna Street.

We arrived at noon, to give us time for a brief home visit Pauline, Julian and Kay and family, then lunched in the excellent Queen's Arms village pub close to the church. By one thirty people were arriving, gathering in the churchyard and chatting.

Just a few minutes before two, the Virger led me, and I led the funeral cortège inside for the service, to the strains of a recorded violin concerto, Paganini, I think. Geoff was a natural musician - violin, piano, clarinet, saxophones, flute, a lifelong lover of all kinds of music. Julian, assisted by the family had written a eulogy, and asked Pam, a  friend of his, with a theatre background to deliver it. It gave me an opportunity to sit and reflect, and be a mourner as well as an officiant. For this, I was grateful. It was beautifully done, and brought warmth to a sad occasion.

Geoff left church swinging to the sound of 'Four Brothers', a virtuoso jazz saxophone quartet number, made world famous by Woody Herman's Herd band in 1947-8, just at the time when he was doing his National Service with the Welsh Guards in Palestine and then Egypt, before he came home and married my big sister after he was de-mobilised. 

As the band played there was a heavy cloudburst, and the six bearers (he was a big man) marched steadfastly out into the storm, leaving the rest of us stranded inside. It stopped after a quarter of an hour, and the convoy headed out across Weston through the holiday traffic to Worle crematorium. There Geoff was carried in to a choral rendering of 'The Red Flag', something he mentioned that he'd appreciate at his funeral. I was never aware that his political leanings were so radical, and wondered if it was more an expression of his Marx Brothers inspired sense of humour.

We returned to Weston for tea at a small hotel with all the other mourners before we set off for home. The traffic queues on the M5 in both directions and the fifteen minute queue at the Severn Cross toll both reminded us that we were driving on a summer holiday Friday evening. We were home by eight, grateful for the thought of a less intense tomorrow.