Claire West's words from the service in Hampton Hill

I want to use today to reflect on what a big, warm, intelligent and funny man Derek was. Bringing us three up wasn’t easy but he kept his humour, his creativity and he was passionate about giving us the best childhood he could. He worked hard to ensure our links to our mother’s family were maintained and he loved telling stories about his own upbringing in Wallasey. I wonder if part of the reason he often talked about how wonderful his own mother was, is because he had some new insight into her life.

In the most obvious way he gave us life, but he also gave us a way to live. He instilled in us a passion for reading, for writing, for laughing, for camping, for eating lumps of cheese with handfuls of peanuts and for crosswords. He proved we could do anything by following his example. So we could decorate a huge house and raise a family single handedly, while working full time while playing squash while going to evening classes while writing novels and researching ancestors.

People who say men can’t multi task were not on the platform when we headed to Bristol one memorable Christmas. With three children, numerous suitcases of gifts including those Santa had asked him to carry, one broken collar bone and a cold, he bundled us onto the train and into a nice big space. As we took our coats off, a glance out of the window made his heart sink. We were on the wrong train and the right one was about to set off. We didn’t leave anything behind in the frantic dash across the platform, but we did end up sharing just two seats all the way.

This reading struck a chord for me because I still have the feeling that Derek is just having a snooze in the other room or driving his lawnmower out in the garden. It’s called death is nothing at all.

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.