A knight there was, and he a worthy man,
Who, from the moment that he first began
To ride about the world, loved chivalry,
Truth, honour, freedom and all courtesy.

That piece from The Canterbury Tales was how my uncle Angus began his memorable address at my father's funeral on Monday. It was the highlight of a wonderful service and a fitting end to my father's time on this earth. Angus's speech was a masterpiece of humble erudition, formal tribute and fraternal pride. Many people have asked for a transcript of what he said and here it is (MS Word Format).

My uncles Angus and Andy and my best friend Alice and her husband Jonny had come to stay before the funeral and were a great help. We arrived at the Church in good time to find many people there already. Sitting at the front it was hard to know how many people were there but the noise when the first hymn began was fantastic! The undertaker told me later he could scarcely remember singing like it. Dad would have been chuffed.

The Queen's representative, Sir Brian Fall, duly arrived and as protocol dictated was shown to his seat at the front. The service then began and I was soon called on to make my reading, from the Union of Friends by William Penn.

They that love beyond the world, cannot be separated by it
Death cannot kill, what never dies.
Nor can Spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their Friendship.
If Absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but Crossing the World, as Friends do the Seas; They live in one another still.
For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is Omnipresent.
In this Divine Glass, they see Face to Face; and their Converse is Free, as well as Pure.
This is the Comfort of Friends, that though they may be said to Die, yet their Friendship and Society are, in the best Sense, ever present, because Immortal.

I found this jotted down in dad's immaculate handwritting in a notebook he kept on his bookshelf. I read it and I knew at once it was true: based on the experience I've had since mum died. It clearly meant something to him so I thought it was perfect. It was a great honour to read it.

The other reading came from my aunt Anne. She was given the first letter to the Corinthians. I have to say I've always thought this piece sufferd from over-exposure. I must have heard it at every wedding I've ever been to. But I've never heard it so well read as by my aunt on Monday. She took it very slowly with pause for thought and contemplation after every line which helped it really sank in. Maybe it was also the version she was reading, from the New English Bible, but it was simply marvellous. And having heard it at every wedding I've ever been to I came to realise that it's actually not about the love that applies at a wedding: it's more suited to a funeral, especially for a man with an immense capacity for love of every sort.

Then came my uncle's marvellous oration. It was a profoundly moving and uplifting speech and it ended with this speech from Hamlet, as the young prince ponders his father's memory:

He was a man, take him for all in all.
I shall not look upon his like again.

That was my dad.