The Parry's of Prestatyn


Today an old lady from Prestatyn will be buried in the graveyard of the town's parish Church. She will join her husband and her son in the family grave, after journeying from the South Coast of England where she has lived for over two decades.
It was a tragedy that her son died twenty five years ago when he was only 24 for he was one of those intelligent bright spark entrepreneurs that were all the rage in the 1980s.
Ian parry was a good friend. I knew him when he was a slightly overweight, slightly gauche teenager and I knew him after he had blossomed into a fearless, hugely ambitious newspaper photographer.
When all of his friends were battling through University ( or in my case nurse training) he had already moved to London, bought a flat in an upcoming part of the city and made a name for himself amid the cut throat world of hacks and celebrity.
He was always destined for bigger and better things.
Unfortunately with rolls of film in his pockets and his cameras slung around his neck, he was killed escaping from the uprising against Ceausescu in Romania in '89.....
He died only a few days before my father.

So today, my sister and I will be paying our respects at Ian's Mother's funeral.
We will be doing it for Ian.
As another old friend confided in me a day or so ago" it marks an end of an era"

Like so many friends and family who died a long time ago, it's sometimes difficult to picture them clearly, or to hear their voice as you once heard it.
Time plays that awful trick on a person.
Does it not?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Parry

http://www.ianparry.org

PostScript
Just arrived home after the service. and I could tell that my sister felt as uncomfortable as I did.
I am glad we went, but the memories that same place/ same reason  funerals bring forth, are not particularly pleasant ones 

54 comments:

  1. I have not lost a lot of people, John, but the few ones that I have lost now seem like shreds of imagination. Or, our brains just try to remember the most significant parts of them, with the significance being subjective.

    You might want to edit the link you provided to wikipedia. It spells wikipedia as 'wikipediay'.

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    1. No..it doesn't Kk
      ...as for remembering people...perhaps you are right.... We only remember what's easiest

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  2. I lost a dear friend 25 years ago, he was only 30. I clearly remember his face and his stance but sadly not his voice. Of course, he'll always be 30 to me, but now, I'm old enough to be his mother, which is a weird feeling...

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    1. Wanda.... I think that's the strange feeling I experienced today

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  3. War photographers have a lot of guts. While we could get behind cover and keep our heads down, they were usually out in the open shooting not bullets, but rolls of film.

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    1. Tom, you are right...... So many say that the lens distances themselves from danger

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  4. Another day, another funeral - well, almost. But they do tend to bunch closer together as one advances on life's inevitable route to the same, dreary end. (Oh hell! How maudlin!)

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  5. You do seem to have been going to too many funerals of late - and yes, it probably is the right thing to do, which doesn't make them any easier.

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    1. ...the older we get... The more we go to

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  6. You're right about the memories of loved one's fading. Life can seem so futile and there is always tragedy. I don't go to many funerals these days. They depress me too much. But we always send a sympathy card.

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    1. Perhaps you have the right idea dave

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  7. Especially the voice thing is a problem for me. I have many pictures of my late husband, and many tangible memories here in the flat we used to share until his death four years ago. But I have no recording of his voice, which was what made me fall in love with him originally, during our first phone call.
    On the other hand, I am not sure it would be good to have a recording. Maybe I'd find it too painful to listen to his voice now.

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    1. I know someone who kept the phone of a loved one, because it had their answer phone message on it.......she was devastated when the phone company is continued the line

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  8. I am pleased to hear that you are going, John. Up here funerals are very important things - we went to two last week and there are another two to attend this week. 'Paying respect' is a phrase you hear all the time up here in the Yorkshire countryside. When I lived in the city nobody ever went to funerals.

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  9. i am sure ian would appreciate you doing this.

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  10. I think the whole forgetting of details "thing" is a method of self preservation and moving on; it is sad nonetheless. Ian looks like he was a lovely man.

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  11. i am sure it will be a very speical day, sometimes we need to stop and remember some one and bring them back into our lives even if it is just for a short time

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  12. Good to pay respects...
    I have only to play a home movie of my sister, to hear my dear sister's voice, so I turn the volume down. It's too much. Really glad that when I speak aloud that it sounds different to me.

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  13. I am missing the presence of a dear elderly neighbour who died recently. The village just doesn't seem the same without her.

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  14. It sounds like you're reliving a loss. It's nice that Ian is still missed by his friends. It means he left a mark on this world.

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  15. Welsh funerals will be forever etched on my brain. Paying one's respects is essential; a sad end to an obviously bright future.

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    1. Like I said , he was destined to better and bigger things

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  16. When the time comes when you can no longer remember the voice of a loved one, it is such a sad realization. A dear friend died seven month ago and I sometimes listen to her voice from a message she left on my phone and I saved. She was so happy then and it gives me comfort.

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    1. How sad and happy all at the same time x

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  17. It's these things that keep our world turning on its axis, my friend. You and your sister are good people.

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  18. Anonymous1:34 pm

    You were good to attend....I avoid funeral homes and funerals as much as possible.

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  19. I think voices are the hardest thing to remember. The faces come back to us and the mannerisms of friends and family seem deeply ingrained but the voices...... so sad not to remember a voice.

    It was lovely of you both to go, although it must have been so hard, your friend would have appreciated it I'm sure.

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  20. As difficult as it may have been John, I feel it is a necessary (for ourselves somehow) ritual to go through.
    My 'second home' when I was a kid was at the 'Miller family home'. John was my best fiend. He had a younger sister Judy. His father died first, then John died years later, followed by his mother and then Judy.
    I went to each funeral. I had to.

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  21. And that is why I love dreams. For me the voices are clearer than ever of those gone before me. Funny in my youth I'd want to stay asleep because I was dreaming of some hot love interest, now I want stay asleep because I was in the middle of a Monopoly game with my parents who were arguing over whose turn it was to run out and get more cigs! Hugs to you John

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  22. Nice post dear!! Love your blog!

    XOXO!

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  23. P's brother died aged 31. He was P's best friend as well as his brother. He never got over it and 20 years later he had his first nervous breakdown. His mum is 92 and has never got over it either. P shares many of his brother's mannerisms which never cease to surprise me. They visit the grave every week. xx

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    1. I lost my brother 2 years ago
      Loosing one at such an early age must have been devastating

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  24. A difficult as it was, you did good.

    cheers, parsnip

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  25. So very kind of you and your sister to attend the funeral and pay your respects to the family, it means so much.
    Yesterday was my grans birthday, she would have been 103 years old. I looked at pictures of her in her bakery, flour on her face and apron, and I could hear her voice telling me to put the crosses on the Hot-Cross buns in the middle of the bun, not on the side.....lol.
    We hold onto such sweet memories.
    ~Jo

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  26. You are a good kind man and your sister is a good woman. You were both right to go, even though it hurt like all hell.
    I remember what my parents sound like, but I do miss hearing them laugh or say my nickname and always will. Some things never heal with time. XO

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    1. Funny I remember how ian laughed but not as he spoke

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  27. When we buried our mother in her home town area, it was the last of her family who lived there. We children live from one coast to the middle of the states. A sad day.

    Donna O'Shaunghessy said it well.

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  28. Oh, how sad. I don't have anyone so I don't lose anyone.

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. Janie
      You do have friends
      They are someone xxx

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  29. When I was very small, about 5 or so, my grandmother knew everyone in town and took me along to the funeral home to pay respect to all the dear souls she knew. She held my hand, filed past the casket, kissed cheeks and shook hands, so it was all very well imbedded in me as I got older. I now do the same. I picked up forms from the funeral home last week to get all my wishes down before the time comes. I plan to save all the stress of my loved ones having to make any decisions. There will be enough to spread a big catered meal out for them all.

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    1. It a way of learning about how to deal with death
      It doesn't happen anymore me thinks
      Thanks linda

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  30. Sorry you have had such a sad day. Thankyou for the link it was really interesting to read about your friend but sadly such a short life. Hopefully no more funerals for a good while. Time for a wedding.

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  31. I've sometimes cried at a funeral, not for the person whose funeral it is, but because of the memories being in the same place and for the same reason evoke.
    My daughter has what she calls ' memories of memories' of my Dad. She was 6 when he died so didn't have chance to create many, but 19 years on she often watches my wedding video so that she can hear him and see him. She finds it painful and comforting in equal measure.

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  32. but you haven't mentioned the Funeral Tea?
    There's something so exquisitely fascinating about Funeral Teas.

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  33. It's always sad when someone dies so young and so unnecessarily, when they were set to achieve so much more in their life. It must have been heartbreaking for his mother.

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