John Wilson Memorial

I had a very moving and humbling experience today. My old friend, John Wilson, who died recently, was given a (humanist) memorial celebration in the chapel of Balliol College, Oxford. It was quite an occasion.



As we gathered in the chapel to the sound of "Sit Down" by James -- which was moving in itself, but doubly so when we heard John had attended a James concert quite recently in his wheelchair -- it became astonishingly apparent how many people had taken the trouble to attend a memorial at midday on a Tuesday. The chapel was packed with what I would guess was 200 or more people, of whom perhaps only 20 were familiar faces. I knew John had led a full and multi-layered life, but -- as we heard tribute after tribute to the place John had held in the hearts and lives of the speakers -- the true scale of his network of friends and influence became apparent.

The Labour Party, the cyclists and the cycle shop, his cricket club, and most movingly the several generations of people who had lived with John at the farmhouse and whom he had helped and nurtured with his gruff generosity (often, it seemed, in the form of cups of tea). It all made the magnitude of his loss at age 52 more poignant. By the end the sniffling and eye-wiping was universal, and we were played out into the sunshine by the Grateful Dead ("Box of Rain").



Of course, I cannot have been alone in wondering how many people would have attended my own memorial, and was humbled by the calculation. Like Scrooge, I resolved to lead a better, fuller, more people-oriented life. Yeah, right. John's brother Phil had asked that we dress in a "colourful and flamboyant" way, both to mark this as a celebration, and to remember John's idiosyncratic fashion sense. Some interesting colourways were on display. Of course, someone always has to go too far...




The local Oxford papers have carried a couple of pieces on John. Here are links to one in the Oxford Times, and one in This is Oxfordshire. And here is an Oxford Times obituary.