The service was exactly the right kind of thing - non-religious and simple. His preference would have been for us not to bother at all, of course, and just get on with our lives, but this was the best compromise to keep everyone happy. So we had a small gathering - me and my brother, my mum and her partner, uncles Syd (eighty-something) and Cyril (seventy-something) and a couple of cousins (his other six brothers, aged between 66 and 85 and all with the dodgy legs and other ailments that run in the Pridmore family, couldn't make it, but they're all of course shocked to have lost their baby brother like this), plus a couple of good friends and a group of his workmates.
The minister, or whatever you call them when they're a humanist, was excellent, summarising my dad's life very nicely, 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' on the organ and a Don McLean song to finish. Then to the pub over the road for food and drink and a lot of reminiscing. And I got on just fine with my mum all day. Great to see the relatives, too, since I practically never do. He wasn't that close to his army of older brothers, a couple of whom had married and left home before he was old enough to notice they existed, but my latest vague resolution is to catch up with all of them and work out exactly how many first, second and third cousins I've got out there. Talking to Syd and Cyril today was like hanging out with two carbon copies of my dad - exactly the same sense of humour and fun.
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