Holiday well and truly over. Post-holiday sulking almost over, situation not assisted by the bloody right calf straining itself when out for a run on Tuesday. Doesn't seem too bad, certainly not as marked as the repeated injuries I used to suffer, but all intimations of mortality are unwelcome. Particularly unwelcome as the wider Aston Edwardian community tries to negotiate two significant deaths.
Harold Jessop was described to me (by a man who would know) as 'the first modern school teacher'. But he was so much more than that - as a rugby master he inspired umpteen generations and was counted by the genius that is Gary Street as his greatest influence. But above all else, he was a complete and unmediated gentleman. He led a full life but the world is nonetheless harsher for his passing.
Terry Green was another schoolmaster, not one who taught at Aston but a man who played his rugby at Aston Old Edwardians - an inspired and beguiling captain of lower teams, an urbane referee, and a cheerful and always encouraging chairman of the club in my year of captaincy. He was serving as a governor at School when he was taken too soon from us. His funeral was a celebration of a life well-lived, and definitely the only such occasion I have encountered where an Elvis impersonator was part of the proceedings. Beautiful. Terry was one of the two most artfully amusing men I have known - both are now dead. As I've had cause to quote before: ' I have the only cure for life/ and the cure life is joy/ I'm the crying man that everyone calls laughing boy.'
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