Sandy 4 St Albans

Going through my father’s papers, we discovered a poem – ‘The Crypto Linguist – pre doughnut days’ – written only last November about and for him by James Crowden.  It so perfectly encapsulates all that my father was.   James very kindly read it at yesterday’s funeral service.

(The “doughnut” of the title is the new GCHQ building at Cheltenham to which they moved after my father retired.)

He offers me red wine and an olive on a stick.
His narrow terraced house
Beneath the old viaduct and opposite the chapel
Nicely tucked away where no one will ever find him.

On the walls hang medals of various noble ancestors
Who fought on the North West Frontier
Or flew over the trenches of France
In biplanes made from canvas and string

And one who was later shot down in his Halifax.
His bookcase on the intermediary landing
A shrine to the memory of Lawrence,
The wilderness of Zin and Colonel Newcombe.

And he, eager to find some other new enigma to crack
Twiddles his long fingers incessantly.
Chewing no doubt on some sweet morsel from Cheltenham
He liked the challenge, the intuition

Like playing bridge or chess
An international cross word puzzle
But the stakes were always higher.
‘People’s lives were at risk you know

And you often had to forget what you had just learnt.
Or guess at the un-guessable.’
Such names as Hugh Alexander and ‘C’
Were conjured up and passed across the table,

Like the anchovies. ‘All ex-Bletchley Hut 6 or 8.
You did not always know, exactly whose traffic
You were trying to decode.’ He could even do it
Upside down sometimes, if push came to shove.

‘There were a lot of women there,
Very useful – their minds worked in different ways.’
He sips a can of beer,
Old gunner ways die hard.

‘Not many of us left’ he said
And looked me in the eye.
Turkish was his speciality loukoum
But that was all he let slip.

James Crowden

We placed my father’s parachute regiment red beret on top of the coffin for the service – then to be cremated with him – and all four of his children talked about our own memories.   I also read the passage from Pilgrim’s Progress relating the death of Mr VALIANT-FOR-TRUTH:

Then said he, ‘I am going to my Father’s; and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage; and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought his battles who now will be my Rewarder.’

When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the riverside; into which as he went he said, ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ And as he went down deeper, he said, ‘Grave, where is thy victory?’ So he passed over; and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.

PS For more information on James Crowden and his beautifully produced books of poetry, visit http://www.james-crowden.co.uk