Five funerals

End of year thoughts

I’m ending the year thinking that, if 2025 is anything to go by, funerals will become more and more commonplace in my life as I grow older. This year, I said goodbye to two artist friends who I met through Drawing Projects UK in Trowbridge. I collaborated with Pauline Scott-Garrett only last year, writing a poetry zine to accompany her exhibition of intaglio prints and collages in Bath. Pauline was extraordinary in keeping up her elegant style and, more importantly, her vibrant creative energy until almost the very last moment. What an inspiration. Philippa Sutherland, too, who I’d known for nearly ten years, retained her gentle, intelligent humour until the end. I was glad to be able to visit her weekly during the last year of her life but I regret not collaborating with her on any projects, although we had many fruitful discussions.

I also attended the funeral of Ann Cusack, the accomplished, imaginative headteacher who invited me to be writer in residence at St Gregory’s School in Bath in 2018. I will always be grateful to Ann for creating this residency, an enriching experience for me and, I hope, for the many students and teachers I worked with.

I accompanied my son to the funeral of the grandmother of one of his very best friends. Although sorrowful at times, there was also a sense of a full life, well-lived. What a difference to attend the funeral of someone who has lived a long, rich and varied life, rather than the funeral of someone who seems to have gone before their time. My son and I will never forget the moving and beautiful experience of hearing Mrs Samberowski’s friends, most in their 90s, singing the Ave Maria at their friends’ graveside.

Lastly, I attended the funeral of David Bath, a parishioner of my local Catholic church. Although I didn’t know David that well, I learned at his funeral how loved he was by family, friends and many of his ex-pupils from the school where he taught. Perhaps David’s funeral will stay with me the longest. It’s certainly what I’m thinking about at this year-end, about love, relationships, attachments, connections. Most of all, love.

So, listen, thanks for reading this post. I’m not writing here much at all because I’m really trying to get back to writing writing, if you know what I mean. But I wish you the best for the year ahead. And I wish you love, in whatever shape it comes.