My dad was well known in the folk world as ‘Old Harry’. While in this hospice his friends would come and sing and dance spontaneously and performed a concert there with Dad accompanying on the concertina. His funeral likewise was an all singing and dancing affair with morris and clog dancers performing in the aisles of the church and more rousing folk songs with the crowd joining in the chorus rather than hymns and lots of amusing anecdotes. He requested that his ashes be scattered in his favourite pubs!! We came up with the idea of planting a rose bush in the pub’s gardens and did so as a memorial bike ride with as many of his friends and relative on their bikes riding from one pub to the next along the leafy roads of Sussex. Each of those pubs, the church, hospice and my brother and I now have a ‘whisky mac’ (his favourite tipple) flourishing in our gardens!
