John Gordon Macintyre, Nairn - Obituary

J Gordon Macintyre 5 October 1931 - 25 September 2016 Rest in Peace

Always known as "J Gordon Macintyre", Gordon Macintyre was a flamboyant and eccentric, but hugely likeable fixture of Nairn (and beyond in certain circles) for many decades. I first met Gordon soon after I came to live in Nairn in September 2000, as I was invited by one of my new neighbours to join her as a guest at a chamber music concert at Clifton House, which it so happens is just around the corner from where I now live, and immediately joined the Nairn Performing Arts Guild (NPAG), a registered charity run by him and which organised chamber music recitals, plays and readings of various kinds. I remained a member until NPAG was succeeded by Music Nairn, when Gordon and his wife, Muriel, decided to move from their long-term home and business at Clifton House (run for many years as a quirky and wonderful small hotel and restaurant, until a few years before they moved), as they now wished to 'retire', to a new home just outside Nairn at Geddes.

From the word go I seemed to 'click' with Gordon - I liked him a lot and I think that feeling was reciprocated. He was an unusual and rather eccentric man, specially when compared with his rather more down-to-earth, fiercely intelligent and occasionally 'waspish' wife Muriel. But Gordon was of course in his own way a practical businessman too, running their hotel and restaurant business very successfuly in his own inimitable and flamboyant way. Muriel sadly passed away some years ago, in June 2009. Gordon was always immaculately and often colourfully attired, often sporting one of his extensive collection of bow-ties or cravates; even in his later declining years, though his attention to the detail of his wardrobe perhaps had slipped a little, he still managed to look smart and certainly always stood out from the crowd in whichever gathering he found himself. I count myself fortunate to have known Gordon, albeit only in the later stages of his life - it made settling in to my new home in Nairn so much more pleasurable.

It so happens I was away at my holiday home in Spain for a month from toward the end of September, as it turns out just a few days after his demise, which I had not heard about when I left for Spain. However, he had telephoned me about a week prior to this (I think therefore only three or four days before before his death) to ask me to postpone a visit to his home that we had been talking about, as he was feeling 'off-colour', saying that he would contact me when he was feeling a bit better. In the light of his death so soon after the call, I now think he was probably telephoning, consciously or unconsciously, to say 'goodbye'. It so happens his obituary was in our local weekly newspaper, The Nairnshire Telegraph (no online presence) only this week, in the issue dated Tuesday 25th October, a month after his death, whereas his obituary in The Scotsman was published only a few days before that on 20th October (read it here), to which it bears a certain similarity, so it is possible his family had deliberately kept his death low-key for the first month, it being inconceivable to me that it would not have been written about sooner, specially in our local newspaper, otherwise.

In any case, I am very saddened to learn of Gordon's death. I am just grateful that I had the pleasure of knowing him and for his friendship.

Nelson Mandela – Obituary

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela 18th July 1918 - 5th December 2013 Rest in Peace

Late on Thursday evening I began to see messages on Twitter that 'Madiba' had passed away so immediately switched to the BBC News channel and Sky News and was in time to watch President Jacob Zuma, the current President of South Africa, making his live statement confirming the sad news that Nelson Mandela had died about an hour earlier. As he had been very ill for some time the news of his death was of course not unexpected, even more so because of his advanced age, but still made me very sad.

Quite where South Africa would be today had Nelson Mandela never existed, or had he been executed as a result of his trial in the early 1960s on charges of inciting a violent revolution (which during a famous speech in testimony before the court he did not deign to deny), but in the event he was instead sentenced by Mr Justice Quartus De Wet to life imprisonment with hard labour, so that he spent the years from 1964 to 1990 behind bars, mainly on Robben Island (a little under 7 Km off the coast, just west of Cape Town), but subsequently at Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town and for the final 15 months at Victor Verster Prison near Paarl in the Western Cape until his release on 11th February 1990, this having been presaged in a speech to Parliament by former President F W de Klerk on 2nd February 1990 - listen to the audio here.

I have never visited South Africa so have no personal experiences of it to offer, although it has been in my consciousness since a very early age, probably from when I was about 8 years old, after what is now known as the Sharpeville Massacre in March 1960. Obviously I was too young to have formed any political views of my own by then, but I do recall that the general tenor of conversations about news events then and subsequently between my parents was that matters would "end in tears" - they explained to me a little about the apartheid system in South Africa with general tones of disapproval both at its injustice and its shortsightedness. My parents were certainly not 'ideological' on the issue, rather that they thought it was a system that could never last, specially given events going on elsewhere in Africa at the time with so many former British colonies having recently gained or being about to gain independence; certainly by the time of the dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1963 and even more so when Rhodesia (formerly Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe) declared UDI in 1965, it was accepted in our household that the whole edifice of the 'white supremacy' policies of South Africa in particular and Rhodesia also were completely inequitable and would have to change sooner or later if bloody violence was to be avoided. In the event it took almost a further 40 years before South Africa moved to majority rule, with quite a lot of violence and economic dislocation in between, but without the descent into a bloody civil war that so many had gloomily predicted.

I think it is probably true to say that the fact this disaster was avoided owes a great deal to the influence of Nelson Mandela, helped by the growing realisation amongst the more forward-looking leaders of the then South African government, P W Botha and F W de Klerk, that the political and economic isolation of the country resulting from the sanctions imposed on it by much of the international community made their political system unsustainable in the longer term. Particularly in the period leading up to his release from prison and even more so in the months and years following his release, the moderating influence of Mandela in agreeing to work with the existing government to achieve an orderly transition to majority rule and his continuing efforts at reconciliation once he became President achieved general support amongst most communities in South Africa. Who knows how that country will develop in coming years now that his moral authority is no longer available, but it is to be hoped that his legacy can endure and be built upon in a positive way, for the sake of everyone in South Africa.

You can read a fuller obituary for Nelson Mandela in the Telegraph here; there is also of course a full biography of Nelson Mandela in Wikipedia here. As I have a particular interest in rugby, I think it appropriate to include also a link to a tribute from Francois Pienaar, former captain of the Springboks when they won against New Zealand in the final of the Rugby World Cup in 1995, also this video tribute from the Springboks:

Margaret Thatcher - Obituary

Margaret Hilda Thatcher (née Roberts) 13th October 1925 - 8th April 2013 Rest in Peace

It was announced around lunch-time on Monday 8th April that Baroness Thatcher had passed away earlier in the morning.

Margaret Thatcher was undoubtedly the greatest British Prime Minister since Winston Churchill. She is also, so far, the only female British Prime Minister, but so far as I am concerned her gender was immaterial (as I rather think it was to her) - she had the capacity to do the job and she did it splendidly, although the fact that she was female equally undoubtedly meant that in order to overcome this "handicap" she had to be (and was) better than the other leading (male) politicians of her generation.

On becoming Leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, in succession to Edward Heath MP (of whom I was, and remain, a great supporter, however controversial that may appear to some), Margaret Thatcher successfully took the Conservative Party to electoral victory in the 1979 General Election.

At the time of her election as Prime Minister I was living in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), having last lived in the UK in early 1973, during the dying days of the last Conservative Government of Edward Heath. I vividly recall from those days when I lived in London the regular electricity cuts and the difficulty of merely getting to and from the office as a result of the intransigence of the then-powerful (over-powerful!) unions and their tactics/policy of bringing chaos to the country to further their (nefarious) aims by carrying out regular strikes. On election night in 1979 I was one of about 10 British colleagues and spouses who gathered together in one of our houses to listen to the unfolding events back in the UK on the BBC World Service on short-wave radio (this being some years before satellite television became a reality, or even imagined, except for very special occasions). At around 5am Jeddah-time (or 2am UK-time, so far as I recall) it became clear that the Thatcher-led Conservative Party had succeeded in turfing out the discredited Labour Party under Prime Minister James Callaghan so we thought it time to crack open the half-dozen or so bottles of champagne we had jointly acquired (at relatively-vast expense, given that that any type of alcohol was officially prohibited in that country, even though our supplies had come from impeccable [Royal] sources - quite literally) to celebrate what we all saw as the possibility of a change of direction in Britain's fortunes, from being what it was widely-viewed then as being - the "sick man of Europe" and a country on an unstoppable spiral of decline, managed by successive governments over the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. By the end of the 1980s no one talked about Britain that way any more - she permanently transformed both the reality and perceptions of the UK very substantially for the better, however much her critics hated what she and her government was doing, even though when one tackled them on the economic mess that the then current "managed decline" had left the country languishing in they had no practical solutions to offer. I regard her and her government as quite simply the saviours of post-war Britain, but like any human being she was not infallible, most notably with her insistence on introducing the economically sensible, but politically disastrous Community Charge (which is often referred to as the 'poll tax'). However, the balance of what she stood for and did was overwhelmingly in her and the country's favour.

You can read a fuller obituary for Baroness Thatcher in the Telegraph here.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - Obituary

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has died aged 86 at his home in Berg, Bavaria (Germany). I grew up listening to the voice of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, sadly only in recordings as I never heard him perform live. He is best known for his performances of songs by Schubert although he was also a noted performer of works by J S Bach (who is, as long-time readers of my blog will know, my 'favourite' composer). There is an excellent full obituary in the Telegraph here and I limit myself to quoting its first two paragraphs, but the whole article is well worth reading:

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau 28 May 1925 - 18 May 2012 "Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who has died aged 86, had one of the most sublime baritone voices ever to grace the concert platform or opera house; he was also a towering musical intellect and a crucial cultural figure in the post-war reconstruction of Germany and its rehabilitation within the international community. "The spiritual centre of Fischer-Dieskau’s endeavour was his singing of Schubert. He performed and recorded more than 400 of the composer’s songs, and his interpretations of the cycles Winterreise, Die schöne Müllerin and Schwanengesang with the English pianist Gerald Moore have become a benchmark by which all subsequent readings have been measured." ~ Rest In Peace ~

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Der Lindenbaum Die Winterreise - Franz Schubert




Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Ich Habe Genug (BWV 82) - Johann Sebastian Bach

Obituary - Václav Havel

Václav Havel 5th October 1936 - 18th December 2011 Rest in Peace

Václav Havel died today, aged 75 years. He had fought over many years for an end to Communism in Czechoslovakia and in 1989 led the "Velvet Revolution" which finally toppled the regime. In June 1990 he became President of Czechoslovakia and after Slovakia broke away, the first President of the Czech Republic in February 1993, a position he held until February 2003. You can read his full Obituary in the Telegraph here.

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (1932-2011) - R.I.P.

I was saddened to hear that the actress Elizabeth Taylor has died today aged 79. For all of my life she has been regarded as one of the world's great female 'beauties' and her trademark violet-coloured eyes were remarkable. Even in later years, although her beauty had faded and she was latterly not in good health at all, she still retained the glamour and star quality of her earlier years. I must admit that until today, when I started to research her life, I had always assumed she was British, or more specifically English, but although born in London her parents were both Americans who resided here so she had dual British and US nationality by virtue of her place of birth and her parentage. Her personal life was somewhat colourful and she even managed to marry one of her seven husbands (the actor Richard Burton) twice, consecutively, the two having presumably decided after their first divorce to 'give it another go' after a brief period apart, but their second marriage lasted less than a year.

She, as one of the most beautiful actresses around, played opposite many of the most handsome male actors of the time - Richard Burton, Montgomery Clift, Paul Newman and Rock Hudson to name just four.

For many years, later in her life, she was a staunch supporter of AIDS charities and was named DBE ('Dame of the British Empire') by Her Majesty the Queen in the Millennium New Year's Honours List on 31st December 1999. The BBC obituary for Elizabeth Taylor is here. The world is a sadder and greyer place with her passing.

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor 27 February 1932 - 23 March 2011 ~ Rest in Peace ~

Marjory Sinclair Cameron - Rest in Peace

My mother died early last Tuesday morning and her funeral service will be held this coming Tuesday. Neither my brother nor me will be wearing black at the service, as we wish to make the occasion one to celebrate her life as well as to mourn her passing. Below is a brief photographic history of her life, starting with a photograph taken around 1930 when she would have been 9 or 10 years old and ending with a photograph of my mother and myself taken around a month prior to her death. For the last 17 months she has been living in a care home and, apart from the initial few months settling in, was very happy there; we are very lucky that the level of care and the kindness shown to her (and other residents) by all of the staff there was of a very high standard indeed. We are so grateful for this.

Marjory Sinclair Cameron (née O'Keeffe) 26 December 1921 - 19 October 2010 - Rest in Peace - Click here to see enlargements of all these photographs, together with detailed descriptions. Click here to see enlargements of all these photographs.

He was NOT a number! Patrick McGoohan - RIP

Sad news that actor Patrick McGoohan has died, aged 80, in California. His Wikipedia entry is here.

Patrick Joseph McGoohan 19 March 1928 – 13 January 2009 ~ Rest in Peace ~ He was NOT a number!

He will probably be best remembered as the co-creator and star of the 1960s television series The Prisoner in which he played the role of 'Number 6'. It was one of my favourite television programmes as a child and my recollection is that when it was originally broadcast in the UK it was in black & white, although repeats I've seen in recent years have been in colour.

My interpretation of the programme at the time, I recall (I would have been 14 or 15 when it was first broadcast), was that it portrayed what this country might become if we adopted an East German or Soviet style of government and is undoubtedly one of the formative influences of my youth and why I loathe and fear authoritarian and socialist/statist forms of government, but little did I imagine that our own government would increasingly try and tabulate and monitor every aspect of our lives, whilst using increasingly intimidatory methods. I do not want to be forced to carry an ID Card, or to be entered in a national database register - in short:

I am NOT a number!

- so the whole premise of "The Prisoner" has assumed an especially topical relevance in the UK in recent years, despite it being a programme first transmitted over 40 years ago.

His other major role from my childhood was Danger Man, another of my favourite shows soon after we first had a TV in the house (from about 1959 or 1960 I think). Obviously I had a schoolboy 'crush' on Patrick McGoohan, long before I knew anything about being gay - he was stunningly good-looking in earlier years and aged remarkably well, too. I will remember him.

Paul Newman - Rest in Peace

Paul Leonard Newman 26 January 1925 - 26 September 2008 - Rest in Peace -

It is sad when someone as well-known and as well-liked as Paul Newman dies. Blessed with improbable good looks and stunning blue eyes and generally acknowledged as one of the finest actors ever he also led, by the standards of Hollywood and indeed most other people's standards too, a pretty good and sane life and leaves behind his wife of 50 years, Joanne Woodward, together with several children (from his two marriages) and grandchildren.

His biography as shown in Wikipedia and his obituary on the BBC.

The gold's a little tarnished ... sigh

I'm sorry to learn that Estelle Getty, one of the Golden Girls, has died shortly before her 85th birthday. I used to enjoy her sassy one-liners directed at her co-stars a lot! Here she relates her tall-tale of a date she had with Pablo Picasso:



Here we see her way of handling family disputes. Don't mess with that lady! But Sophie's human side gets a look in at the end:



Estelle Getty died this morning at her Hollywood home and suffered from severe dementia in recent years.

Rest In Peace.

Heath Ledger - RIP

I heard late yesterday evening with initial disbelief of the unexpected death of Australian actor Heath Ledger, aged 28 years. He was found dead in his New York apartment by his house-keeper. Initial indications are that drugs were involved, although I heard this morning that these may have been prescription drugs, possibly sleeping pills. Whatever happened it is desperately sad.

Heathcliff Andrew Ledger 4 April 1979 - 22 January 2008 - Rest in Peace -

Heath Ledger was still in the early stages of his acting career and many thought he would have a successful future - sadly that is not now to be. Obviously I knew him best from his role in Brokeback Mountain, and this link will bring up all my posts to date on this movie and related matters. His role in that movie as a closeted gay man was vivid and painful to watch - his performance was in a word superb. The Wikipedia article on Heath Ledger has already been updated to include news of his demise and the BBC obituary is here, with the link to its video report on his death here.

James Martin Capozzola - Rest in Peace

I learned today with great sadness that James Martin Capozzola, who ran The Rittenhouse Review blog, which had as its by-line: "A Philadelphia Journal of Politics, Finance, Ethics, and Culture", a pretty accurate summary of what James and his blog were all about, passed away early last week after a prolonged illness.

James began his blog in April 2002, coincidentally just about 11 days after I started my own little blog - we have been on each other's blogrolls almost since the beginning. Of course I did not know him personally, but our occasional email exchanges were always stimulating and worthwhile. I am sorry to see him go - he will be missed (indeed I had noticed the paucity of his recent posts and had wondered about that), although I had often read his posts about some of the difficulties of his personal life including his recurrent bouts of ill-health.

There is a brief announcement posted in his blog shortly after his death by Lynn Haddock and a lengthier tribute is on Suzie's Suburban Guerilla blog. You can see a photograph of James with a friend in another brief and poignant tribute here.

James Martin Capozzola
(1962-2007)
- Rest in Peace -

Bernard Manning: "I'm not that fond of queers."

The title is a quotation taken from Bernard Manning's obituary in the Telegraph yesterday. Paradoxically I found his humour refreshingly honest; of course it was completely awful in any formal sense, but he was pretty 'equal-opportunity' in those he targetted for his very special brand of humour - I think the Telegraph obituary gives a fair and balanced assessment of his life and his, to use a very grandiose term , oeuvre, or 'body of work' (and appropriately enough this Wikipedia article is in French, as this fits in quite nicely with the rather whimsical sentiments I had when I heard of Manning's death).

I think the world will be a much blander, sadder place now that this maverick has gone. He seemed to pander to the baser instincts of his audience, and he did, but the brilliance of his technique was that he shone a very bright light onto the prejudices everyone has and I think most of the audiences at his club must have known this very well; quite why mothers-in-law and the disabled should apparently have been the only two categories he did not 'poke fun at' (i.e. pour scron and abuse on) is anyone's guess. The nearest equivalent I can think of is Coluche (there is a briefer article in English here), whose style of provocative and seemingly crude humour I found riotously funny, as did many, many people in France until his untimely death in a motorcycle accident, even if I always felt rather guilty that I did find it amusing. Like Manning, Coluche devoted considerable efforts to charity.

I have only a very slight hesitation in writing my usual phrase when posting an obtiuary:
Bernard Manning (1930-2007) - Rest in Peace

Good riddance! French Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon has died.

This unrepentant sad excuse for a human being has died aged 96 in his sleep. Read the obituary here - but be warned, you'll need a stiff drink. A truly noisome and poisonous individual!

Rest in Peace - Nick Clarke

Broadcaster Nick Clarke died early today, finally succumbing to the cancer which first struck him viciously late last year and necessitated amputation of a leg. He returned to 'The World at One' on BBC Radio4 this summer adding his characteristic politeness and brevity to interviews, whilst maintaining his dogged determination to get his interviewees to reveal a lot more than many wished to. He similarly added a tone of civilised reasonableness during his all too brief return to hosting 'Any Questions' during the brief absences of the somewhat querulous Jonathan Dimbleby; a breath of fresh air which I looked forward to whenever the 'other' Dimbleby brother took time off.

Tragically both Nick Clarke's parents died of cancer too. He will be much missed, not just by his friends and family, but by the many tens of thousands of Radio4 listeners, such as me, who appreciated his fine qualities.

Rest in Peace - Nick Clarke
1948 - 2006

What Milton Friedman represented ...

... is clearly and surprisingly eloquently discussed in this 'sales pitch' by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for a US television series featuring the economist talking about Free to Choose, a 'personal statement' he published in 1990:

(thru Andrew Sullivan)

I particlularly like a few of his comments and wish that our own dear Government would ditch the socialist nonsense that has plagued our national affairs for far too long, all of my life in fact:

Arnie on Milton Friedman, Socialism and Communism "Being free to choose means being free to make your own decisions, free to live your own life, pursue your own goals, chase your own rainbow, without the Government breathing down on your neck ..." "I came from a socialistic country [Austrial] where the Government controls the economy..." "Individualism [like that] is incompatible with Socialism ..." "the more [the] Government interfered and interfered and inserted itself into the free market the worse the country [his adopted homeland, the USA] did , but when the Government stepped back and let the free enterprise system do its work, then the better we did, the more robust our economy grew, the better I did and the better my business grew ..." "I think it's crucial that we all keep moving in the same direction, away from socialism and towards greater freedom and opportunity." "... the miserable failure of communism ..."

Yes, that is indeed a very fair sampling of what Milton Friedman represented. My own small tribute to him is here.

Milton Friedman - Rest in Peace

Milton Friedman has died in San Fransisco, aged 94.

Milton Friedman
31 July 1912 - 16 November 2006
Rest in Peace

A very nice tribute from Lady Thatcher:

"He revived the economics of liberty, when it had been all but forgotten. Never was there a less dismal practitioner of the dismal science. I shall greatly miss my old friend's lucid wisdom and mordant humour."