Dear Bobby

We tell ourselves an older person dying isn’t as sad as a younger person going needlessly, and to an extent it is true. A person is still a personality and Bobby was a fiery, sharp, funny Bobby until a few weeks before he went. Those of us still alive miss that person, whatever age.

You’re only getting one perspective on Bobby- my perspective. I can’t cover his whole life and if I did you’d be going home just in time for afternoon tea, next monday.

Bobby was my great uncle who died aged ninety five. My Dad’s uncle and a lifelong but complex grump who we loved. Who wants to just be praised in their death? Perhaps Bobby, who as first batter was proudly 85 not out at Kingswood. He was 95 and out in life. A great innings, to use an apt cliche.

Jane, Bobby’s daughter, who he loved unconditionally, incredibly sadly died of cancer recently and I personally think Bob wanted to hang on for her. He may not have always been the best Dad, but which of us is always the best us?

These things are always in flux; he did what he was able to as a human.

Bobby was a wit, a dry complainant who I loved so deeply and while his death was inevitable, I’ll still never hear a joke from him again. That’s what we mourn, and that’s why we have memories, to keep us happy and to carry that person on in us.

Bobby was infatuated with all forms of travel; most of all planes. Growing up in London during the blitz, it was planes or firebombing. So perhaps planes were a healthier obsession.

I once showed Bob a PC game where you flew a Spitfire and he was amazed you could look around the cockpit and see the controls- and to his delight they were accurate! Dare I say he found the game’s realism a bit dis-com-Bobulating.

It’s OK,  just don’t tell anyone I made that joke and we’re cool.

Over the phone Bobby would ask me to describe London. How are the trains? What’s the new London Bridge Station look like? How are the latest Routemasters?

I bought him a model Routemaster to go with his collection of the automobile and aviation miniatures he’d amassed over the years. He’ll never see that routemaster, sadly. He probably would have been as unimpressed with it as he was with my tea, anyway.

He might have complained about literally everything, but that’s how you knew Bobby was OK.

Latterly Dad and I would go down to Selsea and drag him out for fish and chips, he was always good value. Even while he was struggling Bobby was always fun. Funny. Never vocally, but secretly satisfied. Bobby took pleasure in everything he gave and was given, he just didn’t like to admit it.

You might not have agreed with him, but every opinion he had he could back and up for why. Not many people can do that. As a 39 year old, there’s a lot of what Bobby believed I didn’t agree with. But there’s plenty of people who would say that about me.

This is a man whose daytime TV was BBC parliament, he did at least put the graft in. His exceptionally witty, sometimes offensive (a thing I have to say I admire), off the cuff remarks were and are something of the past we’ll never see again.

I’m so glad I got to speak to him while he was in hospital shortly before he died. Bobby's body was sadly spent for a bit but he battled on and was mostly sharp to the end.

“Well, I’ll see you again somewhere, Adam”, he said, and I knew what he meant.

I sincerely hope he’s right.

If he does see me again he’s going to complain about this eulogy.

I’ll take that.

Goodbye Bobby.