Dave

This is one of the earliest photos I have of my uncle, who passed away on March 20, aged 83. He had been diagnosed with rapid onset dementia in the autumn of last year (probably, but not definitely, related to the severe Covid attack he had in April 2020, from which he never really recovered). In the space of two weeks, he went from a happy, cheerful, music-loving sports-mad chap to a shell, who had forgotten 75 years of watching compulsively watching Liverpool, Lancashire Cricket Club and rugby, and resided somewhere in the past. It was heartbreaking to experience from a distance, and I cannot imagine how those who went to see him on a daily basis managed.

In a way, I am fortunate. I had planned to go and visit this summer, but of course won't be able to now. So I get to remember him as he lived, without the clouds surrounding the memory. I'll never forget the week I spent with my dad on his deathbed - it was a healthy experience, but I can't think of him now without harking back to it. Dave, well, it'll be easier.

When I think of Dave, the first thing that comes to mind is laughter. You couldn't talk to him without laughing. He was engaging and self-deprecating, and he was funny. He was also incredibly accident prone. If something could go wrong, it would go wrong for Dave. If a gaffe could be made, then Dave would make it. Examples? Of course. At a family wedding, the reception had been marred by heavy rain and had had to moved into a marquee. Then, as the afternoon wore on, the clouds parted and the sun came out. People left the marquee and stood around tables, chatting and drinking, behaving like people normally behave at a wedding. Not Dave. He became a bit concerned that it was getting  too hot and people might need a little shade. Ever-helpful, he took a large parasol from inside the tent and put it in one of the base stands that had been left outside. Normally these go under the tables and serve as an anchor for the heavy umbrellas. Unfortunately, these had been left in place during the heavy rains and so had filled up with water. The umbrella, quite naturally, displaced this water. Up in a large arc it went, entirely missing Dave, but covering everyone else around him with a muddy sludge. It was typical of him; people loved him because he was so genuine and hadn't a malicious bone in his body. But you always knew something was likely to happen.

He loved the sun and it was his apartment I stayed in when I went to Spain. He also went a couple of times to the Caribbean to watch the cricket. These trips were usually accompanied by a litany of catastrophes. Having gone on a small boat cruise around Tobago, he got out of the boat and stood on the jetty chatting to the captain while the bags were unloaded. Then he fell over the bags and went straight into the ocean. 

He had what we refer to in Liverpool as a "docker's whisper". It was a well-established fact that any room in which Dave was talking would go quiet at the precise moment he said something he shouldn't have said. Of course, once this was known, the entertainment was found in setting him up. It rarely failed. There was a barmaid in one of the pubs he used to frequent as a younger man that he managed to offend by calling a dwarf. It is, of course, offensive. But in farness to him, he had a good excuse: the owner of the pub had just provided the staff with barstools behind the bar, and all of them were sitting down when he walked in. The stools were lower than normal stools, leaving the heads to just poke over the counter. In walks Dave, eyes up the situation, speaks to the closest barmaid and says "Well, it's the first time I've been served by a dwarf." Unfortunately for him, she wasn't sitting down. She was around 4'5" and just happened to be the same height standing up as everyone else was sitting down. Predictably, the entire pub heard the exchange.

There are a million stories, all of them improbable. This photo dates from 1949, when he was taking part in the school pantomime. He and his friend Malcolm had the hugely important role of the Christmas cow. Typically, Dave was the rear end.

I'll miss him enormously and am left feeling somewhat numb. I've drunk copiously to his onward journey, and will sink a few more drams tonight.  The Extra is from the last time I saw him.