The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

If this tribute had a title it would be from one of the many comments that we have received about Anthony – Singing in the office

According to the met office an unusual feature of February 1947 was the lack of sunshine in the south of England and our Mother noted in her diary for Saturday 15th how grey it was again. And she went on – Anthony Arthur born 4.30 pm, weighing 10 ½ lbs. The day before he died was a beautiful hot day and I was sitting with him in his room listening to a blackbird singing outside the window.

He went to Haberdashers’ Aske’s School in West Hampstead close to our home and he would wait for the morning bell to ring before leaving home and running down the hill. During his time there the school moved to Elstree and he had to be much more organised about his journey. It was there that he became friends with Roger Hanes and a passing acquaintance with Roger’s twin sister Pauline. He passed his ‘A’ levels (just) in1965. I remember him repeating the results over and over again around the house with such joy and a little disbelief. He ended up with a degree in Business Studies from Enfield Tech unusually without ever having passed English Language ‘O’ level. Not that I think his English was bad but because it was unlikely that the examiners could have read his writing.

He joined the choir at Hampstead Parish Church at the age of 10 in 1957 and was trained by Martindale Sidwell and it was Martindale’s high standards to which he always aspired in his music. He sang in that choir as boy and man, an amateur, until the late seventies. There were scholarships for the boys at that time and extra payments for weddings and funerals. Anthony was allowed to keep his money – his first purchase was a bicycle on which he could cycle up the hill for twice weekly practices and 2 services on a Sunday. He had a great love of the English Church Choral Tradition and when Stephen was a Chorister in Christchurch Cathedral it was this love as well as the support for Stephen that took him to Oxford week by week. He even had the halleluiah chorus for a ringtone on his mobile phone. We are grateful that the last choir in which he sang, the St Martin Singers, was a such a supportive and happy group.

He was always good with figures. One of his happy memories as a small boy was working out the number of seconds in a year with our Grandfather. This was done by long multiplication in pencil on the enamel kitchen table. He never forgot the total and with great pleasure he would recite it on request. 31,536,000 – I checked that with a calculator.

Anthony could be enormously sociable, chatting to people with such ease wherever he was and he kept up with a lot of people that he met throughout his life. He was very generous especially with his time and very hospitable. Generous – yes – but it was sometimes difficult to get him to pay his debts – he did like to get his money working for him. I gather that he pre-paid for his recent prescriptions in order to save a few pounds.

His work was a mystery to me. I know it involved accounts and management of business – not the business itself. He worked for companies with household names. When he was with Lloyds of London he so rationalised the payments for their agency work that John, a Lloyds Salvage Arbitrator, was surprised when his fees were paid rather less promptly. Anthony had decided that it was better for Lloyds to hang onto the money until the end of each month. What I have gleaned from the many letters and emails that have been sent was that he was held in very high esteem by those with whom he worked – his colleagues, his bosses and the teams that he led. “A highly accomplished professional”, “independent approach”, “clear”, “incisive” “well liked and respected”, “respected business man with a great sense of humour”, “Tony was always such good fun, making the department laugh” Apparently he didn’t hold back though from commenting if he saw slackness and/or stupidity.

He was Auditor, now called independent examiner, for the accounts at Hampstead Parish Church for 24 years and took a keen interest in the well being of the Church he had grown up in and loved. He also audited the Hampstead Church Music Trust accounts for a time. Lately he had been Treasurer of The National Society. Of him they said “he had brought a wonderful warmth as well as insight into being our Treasurer – and that’s a combination its pretty hard to bring off!!”

He could be pretty critical at times especially about other people’s driving although I doubt he openly criticised anyone’s but mine . He was very grateful to those that drove him around recently and especially enjoyed a trip to the bluebell woods in a Porsche Boxter. He rather liked sports cars and when younger enjoyed tinkering with them and with the other old heaps that we all drove around in when young. I remember Pauline’s Father commenting at their wedding that he knew when Anthony had been because there was always a pool of oil left on the drive that had dripped from under the current car.

He loved driving. He would drive all over the continent on holidays and even in winter for the family skiing trips. He could get more stuff into those Volvos than most folk could get into a transit van. He enjoyed the family holidays on Mull and in 2003 determinedly climbed the 3000ft Ben More.

He married Pauline in 1974 and they made their first home in London and then moved to Marlborough in 1983. He worked away quite a bit but he always wanted to go home to be with Pauline and the children and maybe to have a dig in his garden and a dog somewhere around. He had a way of disguising his pride in his children Alison, Philip, Stephen and Tim but he didn’t fool them – they thought him a big tease. The last few times I saw him he found a way of expressing that pride and he told me all the things that they had been doing for him.

The last 3 summers were not easy for him. In each of them he had major surgery. He recovered from his surgery in 2003 and was with me at our Mother’s bedside when she died – I think she was waiting for that. Last year, more surgery and again back to work. This last illness was just too much but he approached it with great fortitude, arranging his affairs and planning his holidays.

And all the while Pauline. Always there encouraging, supporting and in the end caring for him as no other could and he wanting no other.

Let us be thankful for his life and take comfort in his legacy.
And singing in the office. Amen