Tony is my brother-in-law, a lovely Irishman, born in Dublin into a poor working class family who lived in what is now part of fashionable City Centre Dublin, not far from Stephen’s Green. At the time, the house was worth a pittance but now its price would be beyond all but the best paid in Irish Society. He was one of six, an eclectic bunch, two of whom became professional musicians.
Tony was the musician who left Ireland and made a living playing the fiddle, a viola to be precise. He made his way up the ranks through the BBC training Orchestra, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and then onto the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) where he was the Co-principal Viola, number 2 in the section. One of his proudest moments was to be chosen by George Solti to play in an International Orchestra, selected from the greatest musicians playing in Orchestras around the world. The LPO did many world tours but his favourite period of the year was the Orchestra’s residence in Sussex for the Glyndebourne Season.
My wife and I were lucky enough to be able to attend Glyndebourne, usually in the seats allocated to staff which had restricted views of the auditorium. Actually this hardly mattered as the venue was stunning both in the old and new opera houses and the quality of playing and singing superb. The main feature of Glyndebourne is the interval picnic in the lovely grounds of the Christie family home whose idea it was to create this unique cultural venue which has now been copied by many others.
One of Tony’s gifts was his ability to talk equally as well as he could play. It was Tony, from amongst the orchestra players, who volunteered to take distinguished donors on tours of backstage before the performance. The tour was full of interesting anecdotes and amusing stories which made his audience well-disposed to give generously to the cause. He was charm personified but never showed off and was in no way forced. He was a natural story-teller and a brilliant conversationalist who put strangers at ease from the off.
Tony and I loved walking particularly over the South Downs. Everyone we met on our journeys got the Tony treatment. ‘What a lovely day’ he would say to passers-by and before you knew it he had their whole life story. It was a real gift and people engaged because he really was interested in learning about them.
I am mentioning this story as Tony is now in a residential home suffering from severe Alzheimer’s.
My sister struggled to cope with his deteriorating health until the time when it became impossible to care for him at home. He has no memory of basic bodily functions, including how to eat and drink. Fortunately, we did sort out powers of attorney and his affairs so far as legal issues were concerned were taken care of in good time. I know what you are thinking: the purpose of this piece is to point out the need to make proper provision and Jackson Lees are the very people to do that.
Actually I was inspired to write this piece after hearing a Thought for the Day on the Today programme a few weeks ago.
As Tony’s health declined, we would still go on our walks and he would still engage with strangers in exactly the same way as before. We could hardly converse except in a never ending cycle of the same few phrases, yet I bet very few of the people we met would have guessed his condition, as his patter was as polished as ever.
That would not be the same now. Yet despite the fact that it is not that easy to communicate with him, and he can’t respond in the same way, his facial expressions on a good day are not that different from how they were in full conversational flow. He laughs and smiles as he would have done before. A little bit of the same Tony is still there despite our great loss of much of his company. It’s a pleasure to know Tony and thank goodness there is a little bit of him left to enjoy.