March was a very sad month for us as our dear friend of over 30 years Eric Brown unexpectedly got the worst news possible. The medication just didn’t work and his hopes of being able to hang around for between two to five years faded, and it was down to a couple of weeks at best. We still can’t believe it, but yesterday we were at his humanist funeral, along with his much beloved family and many friends and neighbours. This afternoon I actually managed to get some gardening done, and I found myself thinking because he was a keen gardener, ‘I must tell Eric ….’ it’ll be some time before it all sinks in.

Eric was a well-known SF author and more recently he turned to crime fiction with his Langham and Dupre series, set in the 1950s, right up my street. He was lovely enough to dedicate one of his books to Jack and myself. Truly you couldn’t find a better human being, it all seems so unfair. He was 62.

Anyway, the poem below was part of his service.

He chose The Byrds Turn! Turn! Turn! as his final music.