The Daily Telegraph printed another excellent obituary of Dad today. They quote from Dad's book quite a lot which gives it more of a personal flavour. In the print edition they used an excellent picture from Malaysia that I sent them, alas I don't have a scan of it. It shows Dad in morning dress off to present his credentials I believe. He's coming down the steps of our house and with him are some wonderfuly dressed Malays in silk sarongs and Baju Malayu (I _think_ that's what the gents outfit is called). He's looking ever-so-slightly to camera with the faintest smile. It's great.

However the Telegraph also committed the unforgivable error of getting my mother's name wrong! It's Crace, C-R-A-C-E, not Grace. Amateurs....

My uncle Angus kindly came to stay with me after Dad died. He brought with him the most amazing letter. It was written by my dad to his dad in 1944 and it's Dad's first letter home after D-day! I think it's incredible. My friend Cyrus (the scanning king) has made it into a PDF. So if you've got Acrobat, and you're interested, you can read it here.

The Times today printed an obituary of my father. I think it's really good.

The print edition has this excellent picture I supplied of dad gladhanding Pierre Trudeau in Canada.



My friend (probably my oldest friend!) Cyrus Mower got it scanned and I asked for a hi-res image for printing. Well I got one - c2MB, way to big for me to email from my dad's dial-up connection. So I got in the car with my laptop and started cruising the streets for some Wireless action....

Turns out that Lathbury Road, Oxford is Wi-Fi central! From where I parked the car I could connect to 4 unsecured wireless networks. So I found the best connection and hey presto - emailed the pics to the Times. O tempora, o mores!

Dad's funeral will be on Monday 31st October at 2pm at St. Michael at the Northgate in Oxford. Everyone is welcome. Note this is NOT the same church as for my mother's funeral. This St. Michael is in the centre of town on the corner of Cornmarket and Ship Street [ MAP ]

Click here for a visual aid!

I hope everyone will stay for some light refreshments afterwards - the venue is still TBC

Parking in Oxford is never the easiest of tasks but with endless patience and a positive attitude I've heard it can be done. However there is no parking immediately around the church. I would certainly advise the train or the Park and Ride bus-services from around the outskirts of Oxford.

After dad died I put on a CD that has always reminded me of him. Fittingly it was a requiem mass, by Tomas Luis de Victoria, performed by the Gabrielli Consort. I remember him buying it purely on the strength of a review in the Independent. He put it on and we sat side by side on the sofa looking out into the garden as this extraordinary music began.

The Victoria requiem is the single most profound, most beautiful piece of music I have ever heard. But what I love most of all about it is it's humanity. There are no instruments just the incredible polyphonic harmonies of the male voices of the choir. Although the subject of the piece is death and mourning and it speaks to those subjects so strongly, to me it's context has always been a celebration of humanity and of life: the humanity of the person who wrote it; that of the singers who perform it. Listening to it I'll take all the horror in the world, the atrocities, the cruelty, the barabarism that man is capable of and I'll lay the Victoria requiem against them and say but look at this. And I'll win. And I'll take the most glorious sights of nature; a sunrise over the Pacific, Moraine Lake, Mount Fuji and I'll lay the Victoria requiem against them and say look at this act of human creation. And I'll win. And I think the reason that I think this way is because of my dad: he may not have thought the same things but he planted the seeds in my mind.

When we were there, sitting on the sofa, listening to the Victoria requiem for the first time I turned to look at him as the utterly sublime Kyrie came to it's reverberating ending. We both had tears streaming down our cheeks from the sheer beauty of the music. That's what I learned from dad - that the beauty of the human spirit can move you to tears. I used to tease him that his voice would start to crack or tears would start to roll when he was recouting a brilliant try by Jeremy Guscott, or Nelson Mandela walking to freedom or how much money was raised by Comic Relief. But I admired it really and from him I learned how right it was to celebrate the best of humanity. I never knew what to call this feeling until I heard Billy Bragg sing about a "socialism of the heart". Now, whenever I hear that I think of my dad and I know what he means.

My father died peacefully this morning. I was with him as he slept and his breathing slowed until finally he didn't breathe again. It was a very calm and dignified end to an extraordinary life. Son, brother, sportsman, scholar, student, conscientous objector, soldier, diplomat, carpenter, knight, husband, father; my dad was all these things and much much more. To have been his only child was an incredible privilege and joy.

Confusing situation. Right now Dad's asleep. At lunchtime he was sitting up in his chair, the most lucid and lively he's been since I came home. But this morning Bea and I thought he would be in bed all day - he was wheezing badly, his speach was slurred and he was very very weak. Maybe he's fighting it off - maybe it's just respite.

I ended up staying up all night with Dad. Early on his breathing was very laboured and it did make me think I should stick around as it reminded me of how mum sounded at the end. But in fact he slept on through, soundly and peacefully. He did wake a couple of times and would talk quite animatedly although I couldn't make much sense of what he was talking about. But he knew who I was and I helped him take some water and some pills and I even held his cigarettes as he took some greatful drags. His breathing was mostly very ragged and bubbly, a sign of the pneumonia. The District Nurse came at about 9 and gave him an injection to help with this which helped him sleep for the rest of the morning. When he awoke he seemed like a new man. Perhaps its the medication still working. We shall have to see how he is later on.

Had many messages of support from friends reading this - thank you everyone.

Dad's condition has worsened quite significantly but he still remains wonderfully at peace with everything that is going on. In the last few hours I've been able to understand that he is drawing close to death which is making things hard but I'm sure it's a necessary step and I feel quite lucky to be able to be here and share these final moments with him.

Dad is up and in his chair. He has been very weak this morning and slightly confused and his speech is becoming harder to make out. Right now he's sleeping very peacefully.

Yesterday was strange. Having slept most of the day through he seemed very refreshed in the evening. We watched snooker and Dad gave a running commentary on practically every shot. It's hard to establish quite what his state is as any exertion (i.e. being moved from bed to chair and vice versa) leaves him exhausted - hence the sleep and maybe the slurred speech. But right now I don't think there has been much change from yesterday.

I am back in Oxford. The doctor has been to see dad and confirmed that he is in the early stages of pneumonia. She said it would be his last illness and the end seems likely in the next few days but not imeadiately. I'm working from home until the end comes as it gives me something to do. Dad is very peaceful, he's mostly asleep and very relaxed and it seems that when the end comes it will be as he wanted it: at home, at peace and with his family there. So that's not so bad.

I've generally been doing pretty well at coping with Dad's situation, especially while at work but today it all got a bit too much. I got a call first thing from our carer saying that Dad was very weak; unable to do anything really to help our carer whilst getting out of bed and dressed. I asked if I should come home but she didn't think that was necessary. I then got a call later on from my aunt who had been to visit and she was a bit more optimistic. She confirmed that he was a _bit_ weaker but still alert and interested in things and perhaps not as bad as she'd been led to believe. That was a relief but actually the combination of all these updates was that it was very hard to concentrate on anything: the hardest thing to deal with is the uncertainty of what it is I'm dealing with. Anyway just before a big meeting this afternoon I had to go and hide in the loo for a while and have a quick cry.

Crying is an amazing thing and I don't quite understands how it works. I never cry for very long and it almost immediately makes me feel better. It does purge something and seem to return me to an equilibrium. It was then good to get into this planning meeting which was quite lively and gave me something to concentrate on.

I ended up skiping improv tonight and heading back to Oxford after work for a bit of male bonding in front of the England game. Cried a few times in the car, at other times I was singing along to the music - weird. Got home to find Dad much as I left him but yes, probably a little weaker physically. But he's well enough to enjoy an England win even if he wasn't sure about my assertion that Ledley King is the new Claude Makelele. Glad I went though, Dad was chuffed to see me and anything that cheers him has got to be worth doing.

Every now and then I hear a song that I can't stop listening to over and over again. Earlier in the year it was the Magic Numbers and then for a while "If I had a hammer" by Peter, Paul and Mary (!). Currently it's "Jesusland" by Ben Folds. My iPod is like some 1950s DJ booth with a Buddy Holly single. I play it once and then again and then again and again. It's, erm, quite catchy. I've never thought of myself as a fan of Ben Folds or his not-so-furious five but this song followed me home and it was so cute I had to keep it.

I'm a little bit disturbed though. The title is the core of the chorus (the chor?) but it sounds like "She's a slaaaaaaaaag". Forget the Interpretation of Dreams surely there's a name to be made for the modern psychoanalyst who can define the interpreation of miss-heard lyrics. Maybe this is what I want to hear? Due to some deep-seated need to meet women of a dubious moral standing? Of course nothing could be further from the truth...

Went to see a preview of the new Wallace and Gromit movie today: "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit". It's absolutely fantastic. One of the best British comedies I've seen for years: off the top of my head I can't think of one that packs so many gags so quickly. It's a joyous, hug-yourself-it's-so-much-fun, celebration of British creativity and eccentricty. I'm sure some people will carp that this Britain of comedy vicars and vegetable growing contests is an anachronism - but what's that got to do with anything? It should be as big as Toy Story and Nick Park deserves an open-top bus ride to Trafalgar Square (that being the new democratic honour we bestow on our heroes).

Favourite bits
- The vicar and the burp
- The "tumbleweed"
- The organist

It's all great. Go see.