This is tough – very. I’ve done one or two of these; inevitable as one gets older. Mother’s was difficult, but this is much more so. The last thing I wanted or imagined, was to be standing here in front of you all delivering a final farewell to my dear old brother, any more than all of you would have wanted to be here listening to it. The up-side of it from my point of view – is that for the 1st time in my life, I have the undivided attention of all his family and friends gathered here, in revered silence, with no heckling or chance of missiles being launched in my direction.  I’m going to miss him and Posy terribly; we all are. They are leaving a very large hole in our lives, but I have to keep this up-beat, which is what he would want. One thing though: I am so glad the two of them made it to Prussia’s wedding in Cornwall last year; that was so special and we spent the week following the wedding, walking, eating, drinking and enjoyed many hours together.

Now Wil asked me to tell you all about our younger days, since I’m probably the only one who can throw light on things that happened before our combined ages added up to 10 and beyond. We lived at ‘The Old Post Office’, Flyford Flavel. I can go back to the late summer of 1951, when in September Mother carted Rich off to Flyford Primary school. He wasn’t a willing participant and cried all the way up the road. I recall thinking: I’d lost my playmate – and I wished I was going, as it would be a long 2 years before I could. When the 1st 3 years of your life is all of your life, the next 2 years is a very long time indeed. But by the end of his first day at school, things had changed a little. We all had free school milk of course, crates of little bottles? Well, the school harvested the silver foil bottle tops and Rich came home pleased as punch, holding about a dozen of these tops threaded on a piece of string like a necklace. I thought this was amazingly creative; which 68 years ago, it was! Our expectations were a little lower then. Those were the days when the car came with a starting handle, pitifully slow wipers and a heater was a rug over your knees. Once, Ma had left the car parked on the road adjacent to our gently sloping drive, when Rich managed to let the handbrake off and the car started rolling gently forward. Miraculously he managed to steer it into the drive where it eventually stopped without hitting anything. A good job it never made it as far as the cess pit. Mother was hysterical.

Bonfire night was Father’s treat, because he loved fireworks and he was out there letting them; he really was a firework ‘nut’. Too young to be outside, we all watched from a kitchen window. Then there were spuds that had baked in the bon-fire. A dollop of butter followed by black tongues. Father bought our 1st telly in 1953 and the whole village piled in to watch the coronation. We should have charged them.

1953, was the year Pa secured a transfer form Lloyds Bank Evesham, which was how we ended up in Exeter. Mother I don’t think was that keen, but go we did. The old Austin 8 was loaded to the roof with ‘stuff’ and we set off, Carrie in the front, Rich and I squabbling in the back on the then long journey down the A38 to Devon. Father followed on his Royal Enfield. We took temporary lodgings at Shillingford Rectory; a throw-back to the Dickensian era, where we were terrified of the taciturn old vicar and his super critical wife who looked down her nose at us. Looking back, I’m sure the only things missing from her wardrobe were the broom-stick and a pointy hat. Little kids can be destructive at that age, if un-supervised and our contribution to that place after being chastised again and again, was to kick the vicar’s ‘rain gauge’, into many pieces, for which, poor old Pa had to apologise profusely and replace. 

Our new home – 6 Archibald Road, Exeter was where we grew up. We were there until 1969 when Father retired and moved to Bickleigh.  Our next door neighbours at number 8, were the Croft Family. They had 3 children of pretty much ages contemporary to ours: Alison, the eldest and Carrie were mates, Hugh, the elder son, from whom you will hear shortly, was almost exactly the same age as Rich; they were buddies and Simon, who was my age. These were our playmates.

Primary School was 15 minute walk from home and somehow, it was a cheerful place and it’s funny the little things one remembers. In the playground, there was a raised horizontal ladder, where having climbed up one end, the idea was to swing like a monkey from rung to rung until you either fell off or made it to the sanctuary of the down ladder at the opposite end. Richard was particularly accomplished at this, swinging to every other or sometimes missing 2 rungs with the agility of an orangutan. That was about it for primary school. And so we move on, as it was at the Prep School (Exeter Cathedral Choristers) that he met Hadrian Stirling, with whom you will become acquainted through his own tribute to Rich. His represents an enduring tale, when I tell you that I was 6 when Hadrian was brought home to ‘tea’ and we’re still mates now. Hadrian moved on to Exeter School; Rich and I went to Hele’s Grammar school, which now no longer exists; Progress turned its beautiful playing fields into an industrial estate. Sadly, Hadrian and Ann Can’t be with us today, as they are in Switzerland with their son Tim.

Significant holidays: Easter 1957, we made our 1st visit to the Isles of Scilly, where we just fell in love with the place; so much so, that we went Easter and summer for the next 6 years. And we invited all our friends old and young to come along too. The Crofts, the cousins, friends young and old; they all came. A wonderful place to which we must return.

Now then: at Hele’s, Richard was studious, hardworking and achieved success. I didn’t do so well. My progress through Hele’s was painful. The end of term reports said it all. Rich was always applauded for his efforts; I was chastised for mine. His said ‘A good effort, well done’! Mine said: ‘Could do better; needs more effort’. One tutor put ‘Far too self-complacent’ on my report. At the age of 13, I thought that was a compliment! My school days were certainly not the happiest, whereas Rich sailed through. 

And then one day Father bought a boat! We joined the Starcross Yacht Club and spent many a weekend there, but we didn’t have a racing dinghy, we had a 14 foot clinker built old lug-rigged sail boat called ‘Falita’ in which we pottered about, using strange language; such as  ‘Grab that halyard’ – ‘grab that what?’, ‘Ready about’ and ‘Lee-ho’. Well we ran aground, got stuck on mud banks, fought against the tide and wind and generally moved at a snail’s pace. Ma packed a picnic as our destination was Dawlish Warren, but sometimes, it was such a struggle to get there; by the time we did, it was time to turn back. Tedious as it was, we persevered for a while. Then Father bought an outboard motor – a new British Seagull. That was more the ticket. In those days, starting it involved wrapping a rope with a knot in it around the open flywheel and with a duffle coat toggle at the other end, you gave it a swift pull to start it, but in so doing, one of us usually got whip-lashed by the starter cord in the process! We soon learned to duck. This was possibly where Richard’s passion for the sea was most likely born, but that was later. 

Then one day in early ‘62, Father bought an old Austin 7 Ruby from one of the bank staff for £10.00. Suddenly we were a 2 car family! Rich and I spent hours and hours tinkering with this thing, on which we both learned to drive. Starcross yacht Club came in handy with its huge car park through and under trees. No longer interested in the boat, we made a circuit to hone our driving skills. We managed to tip it over one day on a country lane somewhere, but apart from losing a bit of oil, it didn’t suffer much: We just rolled it up-right and carried on. A slightly dented roof-line and a couple of scratches were soon made good with a lick of household enamel. We ended up with 3 ruby’s and a big old pre-war MG. 

We had both become quite competent drivers, under age and completely illegally, we drove around deserted mid-Devon country lanes. We rarely met any other cars and when Rich took his driving test in the autumn of ’63, he passed without a hitch. I took mine 5 weeks after my 17th birthday and also passed, but by that time, we’d both left school and our lives started to diverge. Richard ‘um’d & ah’d’ about accountancy or the law and plumbed for accountancy after being persuaded by an accountant mate -Phil Taylor, over many a game of Croquet at the Stirling residence. It didn’t last long though and I’m reminded by Ashley Daly (without an ‘e’), that Rich now thinking about medicine, approached Ash’s father, who was the city coroner. He was taken around the R D & E Hospital for a day, after which Rich soon decided it wasn’t for him. And so the law it was. We both started earning – and to our joint horror, Ma took a pound a week out of our salaries for up-keep. We were having to pay to stay at home! 

Now I digress from the history lesson here to tell you how Firework night became mobile! In my Ford Anglia, we had such fun driving down the road with Roman Candles hanging out of each window. It was handy to have lit fag in the mouth, with which to ignite the blue touch paper and to keep a box full of bangers on one’s lap. As we drove around town, Richard was very adept at lobbing bangers over the roof at old ladies, tramps and bus queues on the opposite side of the road. Such harmless fun, which I gather we’re not allowed to do anymore. Spoil-sports!  Back on the rails again and by 1967, I had gone to ICI Paints division in Slough. At this point, I had effectively left home, only returning at weekends, by hitch-hiking, mostly. Richard had gone to law school and had digs in Guildford. After a week there, he sheepishly asked his land-lady if he could have a bath. She replied: ‘Oh I wish you would’! Well it’s not until you have girl-friends or wives that you get told you stink! 

And so to the great adventure: when in the summer of ’69, Richard and Hadrian bought an ageing yacht ‘Nereis’, which you will have no doubt read about in the tributes. The horrible engine mentioned was a tired Stuart-Turner petrol engine that was well past its ‘use-by date’. As the engineer, It was my job to mount the engine in line with the prop shaft and get it going, which I did, but it let them down time and again and sometime later, it was replaced by a modern diesel. Hadrian, Rich and I worked on her and slept on-board until some semblance of order was established. It came with an 8 foot pram dinghy tender, which was really only intended for one person and I remember we all clambered into this at night, rowing across the Falmouth estuary to get fish ‘n chips, with about 3 inches of freeboard showing above the water. How stupid was that! Even a tiny wave would have swamped us. Somehow we made it – and lived to tell the tale!

This now for me – is where the story partially ends, since I was living in Windsor, while at ICI, before moving on to Lotus, then Meads Rolls Royce, Ford, BMW and many other operations before setting up on my own and our paths rarely crossed. Hugh has his own tribute to tell you and then Ashley will take up the story from the early ‘70’s on. Annie and I still see Hadrian and Ann and will be heading up to Scotland in September where a few Munroes await our presence. As I mentioned earlier; the bond is still there 65 years on.

But before I hand you over, I must commend my amazing resourceful brother, who never really enjoyed his job, but was incredibly good at it; and as with Mother’s travels, to pay tribute to his adventures in foreign lands which have left an indelible print on all of us, so keen were he and Posy to travel almost into the un-known, especially in Africa. Then there was their Land Rover hike to Yugoslavia; all incredible stuff. But we must now pay a particular tribute to their 3 brilliant, clever, resourceful off-spring; Phoebe, Wil and Bart and of course to their respective spouses; Lucy, Eva and phoebe’s stalwart husband Tim. They have suffered the ‘double-whammy’ of losing both parents in such a short time. But it is the order of things; cancer does not discriminate. They have been well and truly put through the mill this year, but their bond, our bond is immensely strong and as the remaining aunt and uncle, our duty is to the living and so Carrie and I, if they need us, will become surrogate parents to I think you’ll all agree – The fantastic 6.