Yesterday started off being a cold and miserable day which felt more like an autumn day than a UK summer. I hope this squally weather will soon blow over but it is one of those when one has to reach for an extra jumper to counteract the chill. As soon as I got up and had my obligatory huge mug of tea there were two important emails for me to consider. The first and most important of these was the latest version of the ‘Order of Service’ which now contains all of the words to the hymns for people to sing. I have yet to give this a really detailed scrutiny but at first glance, it is almost exactly what we want. I have passed the complete document over to our organist/Eucharistic minister and she and I will have the final and definitive say but, of course, time is passing. The second item in my email was an historic photograph of Meg surrounded by colleagues from the Business School at De Montfort University. The point about the photo is that Meg is very much ‘centre stage’ and the highlight of this photo which I am pretty sure is a photo of the Business Studies tutorial team c. 1978-1979. Apart from Meg (and myself in a quasi-fashionable light blue denim suit and a pint of beer!) there are the lead Practical Training tutor, two mathematicians, two economists, a lawyer and a psychologist and a final figure I cannot identify or remember. The point about the photo is that was taken at an event before Meg joined the Public Administration team at the Scraptoft campus and Meg would have been about 34 years of age and before she was assailed by a wave of illnesses which came to characterise her later life. Although Meg became to be identified as part of the Public Administration team, she was actually recruited as part of the Business Studies degree team whose students she placed before switching departments. So the photograph actually illustrates an important part of Meg’s career which rather was overshadowed by what she did later on. I can remember that when Meg first joined the Public Administration team of which I was a member, there was a certain atmosphere at a husband-and-wife team being employed in the same department. But this feeling evaporated very quickly when on an important issue in a departmental meeting which went to a vote, I voted one way and Meg voted the other and I think that the rest of our colleagues breathed a sort of collective sigh of relief that we were going to act as independent professionals and would not let our marital status cloud our professional judgements. This would have been assisted, of course, if Meg had used her. maiden name professionally but this never happened largely because Meg’s first boss thought it not to be a good idea (although it was very common in the civil service at the time).
I went shopping to the bigger Aldi store which we have in town and although this had its moments of sadness (passing by items that I would have bought with Meg in mind but now no longer buy) this I managed to negotiate without too much distress. Upon my return home, I unpacked the shopping and then made a phone call to one of my nephews with whom I have not spoken for years but who was on holiday in Portugal and I have to report that the connection was as clear as a bell and as though we were in the next room. We had a long chat for over half an hour and my nephew, fully aware of things that have happened in my life via this blog, was very sympathetic. I am delighted to say that he will be making the journey down from Yorkshire and I will be delighted to see him after so many years. We chatted about the feasibility of making a trip up to Yorkshire the week after the funeral, made somewhat more difficult as our ‘Motability’ car has to be handed back and if I go to Yorkshire, it will by train and I will have to rely upon taxis left, right and centre. This might not be a bad way to do things in any case but it was good to have another family member’s perspective on my travel plans.
After lunch, I decided to make a little venture into town and I visited the opticians. Here I could officially inform them of Meg’s death and ask that she be removed from both their ‘optician’ and their ‘hearing aid’ databases but I also took the opportunity to book myself an eye test for a couple of weeks time. I bought some cosmetics that I needed and the heavens opened so I had to shelter inside the store, but after this I took myself off to Waitrose where I availed myself of a cappuccino (but did not bump into any one I knew – the clientele shifts throughout the day). As soon as I arrived home, the Eucharistic minister to whom I had given a copy of the latest version of the ‘Order of Service’ and I very carefully compiled a lit of the four latest amendments that were needed and have transmitted these on to the undertaker. If these get incorporated successfully we can go to print and I have requested extra copies so that those who could not make the funeral because of holiday commitments can be mailed a copy. So I think we are at the stage where practically everything that needs to be done in preparation for the funeral has actually been accomplished. Then in the late afternoon, I wondered if I had some classic De Montfort University photos of Meg in the days long before we had digital cameras, I managed to locate about ten photos of Meg largely taken from staff notice boards or official ‘functions’ at the Polytechnic as it then was plus the originals of two classic photos of which hitherto I had only got a paper copy. These twelve photos have not been put on a rolling display on my website to be viewed by al the world. Finally, after a brief confirmatory phone call with one of my Yorkshire nieces, I have gone ahead and booked both a hotel room and also the relevant train tickets for a journey up to see my Yorkshire family in the week (Monday to Friday) following the funeral.