The breaking of so great a thing should makeMy father died yesterday. As I stood over him for the last time these lines from Antony and Cleopatra came to mind. My brother, as so often, got it right and more succinctly, 'He was a great man.'
A greater crack: the round world
Should have shook lions into civil streets,
And citizens to their dens: the death of Antony
Is not a single doom; in the name lay
A moiety of the world.
He was a King Edward Foundation scholar at school, A City of Birmingham Exhibitioner at the LSE, RAF officer, schoolmaster, headmaster, rugby and cricket player and administrator, devoted husband, an inspirational father and magnificent grandfather. In a life where I have been lucky to be exposed to many clever people he was the cleverest man I ever met. In his last years he was diminished by dementia but his magnificence remained. He was indeed a great man. Rest in peace.
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