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Tangled round their feet in fact. [ Previous Radical’s Diary ] Kew, England I HAVE completed Chapter Fifteen of the Himmler biography, and at 9:40 p.m. I email it to my editorial Gang with this covering message: I have had a busy weekend, but am keeping up the pace. I am attaching in confidence two more chapters of Himmler. . . We have alas lost one of my best editorial friends, Gerhard Röhringer , of Santa Barbara; he died
on July 25 and he will be sorely missed. My own fault, for taking so long. But this is a job which needs doing properly. You will get a sense of ominous things lying ahead, like driving down a long summer highway and seeing a jet-black, lowering sky far ahead. Ah, a nice metaphor. I should be a writer. Oh, I am. Kew – Dilt
on Marsh – Kew, England OFF to Wiltshire. at 9:25 a.m with Jessica for John’s funeral.; at eleven we are at Melksham, and I pick up ten boxes of Hitler’s War – hooray! – and speed on, arriving at Holy Trinity church at Dilton Marsh, at 12:10 pm. A family crowd had gathered on the pavement, awaiting the hearse. I chat with them for a while. I was, and am, puzzled at the total absence of any RAF delegation.
John Gourier ‘s widow is there, and she tells me later that sixty members of her husband’s regiment attended his funeral. Perhaps it was an oversight, but John’s son David Jr. in one of the three moving and well-prepared eulogies delivered by the children, mentions that his father left the RAF “under a cloud” after they adapted his work on the airfield busting bomb, the Paveway I believe, to develop scatter-bombs, which he had considered criminal and refused to work on.
He left to join the Sultan of Oman and build up the airforce there, and became a Muslim. The service here is partly Muslim in consequence, which I find strange. Abdullah is there in priestly garb, and an imam, much older, and the English vicar took it all in good part. I said to him at the reception afterwards that John was like that, and had pronounced views on everything .
He had taken out double insurance, so to speak. “Probably right about now he is discovering which one will actually pay up.” Discreet chuckles. After we follow the coffin into the church, I discover to my astonishment that it is packed to the eaves, with perhaps three hundred people crowding the pews. He was a man with many friends and admirers. Pews for the family have been reserved in front, and we lustily sing the hymns which were John’s favourites.
None of his children mentions his passion for musical instruments, though David does refer to the fact that his house listened only to Classical music. “Sound familiar?” It is a happy, joyous celebration of an eighty-one year life. As the coffin is carried past by the pallbearers, I put my hand briefly on the Union flag that drapes it and silently say Goodbye again, and I proudly slip in to the exit procession right behind Alison and her son as she leads us out to the sunshine.
AS we wait for the hearse to be readied and the flowers to be laid on top, I remind one of the sons, David, who made all the preparations for today with John over many weeks, that his father had required all four children to act as pallbearers of their mother’s coffin. He explains, “Health & Safety. John wanted that here too, but government regulations say that pallbearers now have to attend a course of instruction.” Ridiculous. A lovely morning.
Nicky and Carol are there – the former looking healthier than I had expected. I walk over to Carol with Nicky and ask Jessica to take a picture of the three of us, but Carol makes an excuse and says crossly: “Not now.” Cross: She always was that. Jessica is much admired in her black silk dress, which is far too short for a funeral; but she is well covered at the top, while elsewhere there is much flesh on display.