Requiem for three Johns
February 12, 2023, 7:13 am , by Richard Lutz
by Richard Lutz
It’s been quite a time. Three funerals. Three men who passed away. All of them called John. Nothing in it really. Except that each one, each John, gave something back to the world. Each in a different fashion, each equally vital.
This week, the most recent funeral was for John Gallagher. He was from the Isle of Man and he was the family’s beloved Uncle John:
I knew him for fifty years and never heard a sour word from this man of the church. He was kind. He saw the world around him in the best possible light. He bore problems with quiet strength and was among the most honest of people I’ve ever met.
A previous John, already mentioned in these columns, is John Rouse. He died aged 75:
This John, during his career as an academic and during his subsequent retirement, loved nothing better than being involved in the community around him: politics, local events, charities that really made a difference to the marginalised, help for those that need a guiding hand. It seems as if this John could always be found bustling to another board meeting, another fundraiser, another rally to try and ensure we lived in a better place.
And the third farewell is for John Mapplebeck who lived and breathed making tv documentaries:
He improved our world by telling stories that illustrated social and cultural problems we faced and the solutions that are at hand. For more than five decades he worked for The Guardian, for the BBC and with independents such as Melvyn Bragg to illuminate and reveal. His metaphoric mantelpiece was full of awards and the tributes flowed fast and deeply felt after his autumnal death for not only reporting our world but tirelessly nurturing new talent.
All three Johns will be missed. All led lives that made Britain a better place, whether through the unalloyed gift of kindness, the selfless gift of improving our world or the hard edged gift of reporting this world, our world.
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Robert Wills
And from another John- ‘no man is an island…’
Laura Lee
Sad departures
Tom Duncan
Lovely
Femi Oyebode
Nice tributes
Leon McAuliffe
I enjoy so many things about this time of life, except the loss and frailties of long-time friends.
Louisa Rowe
Just last week we were all kids
WM who knew John
Lovely
Jim Darvell
Nice to see this pop up on my screen
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