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Joe
17 June 2005
Apparently the Archbishop of Canterbury has been criticising blogs, on the grounds that they are ‘unpoliced conversations’. Does the man really think that conversations ought to be policed? Lawks...
Still, never mind the Archbish; I shall continue to blog. Police me if you choose.
We were policed this morning, but very gently so. It was the day of Joe’s funerary rites, which were scheduled to begin this morning in the park opposite my house. So a couple of other friends came round for coffee first, and we were just gathering up our coats and heading towards the door when we heard the distant strains of music coming along the road. And went out, and there was Joe in a white coffin on a handcart bedecked with flowers, being towed by his brothers, while I don’t know how many dozen fiddlers walked behind, all playing the same repetitive line. And behind them came a long parade, and half my friends among them. Joe was one of the first people I met when I moved to Newcastle, twenty-five years ago; it was that student and post-student culture of shared houses and shared lives, a tight little community that may have scattered but has never split. It’s been a good day, a good long day of remembering and mourning and celebrating Joe, but the best of it was that moment, when everyone he loved came walking past my house.
© Chaz Brenchley 2005
Reproduced here by permission of Chaz Brenchley, who asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.