REMEMBERING JOHN CLARKE

An excerpt from Rev’d Penny’s address at his funeral

When I last spoke to John on the Friday before he died, there was no hint of what was to follow. He was on good form over the phone and ended the call by promising to send through a report for the APCM which duly arrived a couple of hours later. So I take some comfort today, in thinking that he was active and engaged in the fabric of the life he chose to live right up to the end A huge blessing for him, but leaving us reeling at the thought we’ll never hear his voice or see him again.

‘To everything there is a season. A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted.’

Imagine John reading that (cue for one of his dramatic pauses) and think for a moment, of what the words might have evoked in him. Memories perhaps of the times when Orielle, Ranald and Flavia were born, or of the death of his parents and sister Janet: of the bombs that were planted in Northern Ireland, and the courage he had to pluck up, to work on the front line and carry arms there during the Troubles

Imagine too, the trauma of that season of his life; following the two years that he did immediately after leaving school in Sherbourne with VSO in Botswana, which laid the seeds of his empathy expressed in Ireland when he took it upon himself to be the regimental advocates for young soldiers. He was held in esteem by the officers – some of whom are here today - or rising to that challenge. In later life, also explaining why Caius House and the Devas youth clubs and the Scrubbery, were such an inspiration to him. He was a huge believer in helping young people fulfil their potential and not be deterred by circumstances

The mere mention of his name evoked, and still evokes, a smile in those who knew him in the years after France, when he came back and settled in Wandworth; worshipping here most Sundays, after discovering a church that suited his tastes, and enabled him to commune with God, as he had done, in the past – in the very different setting of a monastic chapel close to home in Toulouse, where he sought the peace of mind, that eluded him at the time.

John took this mandate as cellarer seriously and was in his element with his apron on, and when applying the polishing routine that he’d learnt in the army to the silver in church, in anticipation of Easter, when he took great delight in popping champagne corks open at breakfast after the dawn mass.

A couple of months ago, thinking that part of the light over the aumbry had been stolen, we checked a wonderful picture of John cleaning it within an inch of its life, only to realise that we’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. It was simply hung upside down and is now fully restored to its usual glory.

We will miss John but our loss is God’s gain. As a disciple of Christ, he knew that Good Friday was hell, but not the end of the story So let us bear witness to his faith, and ours, by commending him to the one who walked through the valley of the shadow of death to show us the way to the green pastures beyond I pray today, there will be rejoicing in heaven, when the pearly gates open, and John finds his place at the table, where – as at the wedding in Cana – the best wine is served last and is plentiful enough to restore his spirit and ours.