On 13th December 2020 my dad, John Fitton died peacefully in his sleep after a long period of illness, at Abbeydale Care Home, Bury, UK.
The funeral was at Radcliffe Crematorium, on the morning of Wednesday 30th December 2020.

Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, very few people were able to attend, so I have created this page to share his eulogy, and also any tributes that people have sent me since dad’s passing. I’ve put it on this website because it won’t be disrupted by adverts.
Rather than spending money on flowers, if you feel moved to do so, please follow this link to send a donation of your choice to Parkinson’s UK.

I would like to thank everyone who sent me memories to write into the eulogy and especially my mother, Lorraine, for giving me the honour of writing and delivering it.

Eulogy for Dad

John Fitton, 14^th February 1942 to 13^th December 2020.
Delivered at the funeral, 9:40am 30^th December 2020

Back in the summer of 1997, I had a very sudden and traumatic relationship breakdown.  That evening, completely unannounced, my dad turned up with two bottles of red wine.  He got me completely blotto – I can’t remember what on earth we talked about.  Now, it doesn’t sound like the healthiest or most sensible thing to do, but at that time and place it was exactly right.  He had a knack for that kind of thing.

We’re here this morning to say goodbye to that man, John Fitton, or to me, dad.  It’s important to grieve, to mourn the loss of a loved one, but I think we’ve all been doing that in our own ways for the last two weeks and more, and he believed, as do I, that a funeral can and often should be a celebration of a life well lived.  So, with gratitude for the help I’ve been given by people here, let’s do that.
You’ll mostly already know these stories, but I reckon they bear repeating.

Valentine’s day 1942 was John’s first appearance in the world – the fourth child of the ten that Jim and Alice Tunnah would go on to have.  They didn’t call him Valentine, because Jim put his foot down, but he wasn’t called Fitton either.  That bit comes later.
When he was seven, Alice became quite ill, so the kids were farmed out to various relatives for a while.  Young John went to stop with his aunty Fanny and uncle Harold in Radcliffe.  He decided he wanted to stay, and so they adopted him and he became a Fitton.  Having said that, he still kept up a strong relationship with his birth family and so managed to put himself in the unique position of not only having twice as many parents as anybody else, but also growing up an only child with five brothers and four sisters.

Fanny and Harold brought John up as a Roman Catholic, because that’s what he’d come to them as, but as he got older he started to question and drift away from the church.  The big split came when, at seventeen, he met 15 year old Lorraine in a milk bar in Radcliffe and religion rather lost the fight.  Two years later, after a legal wrangle that got into the local papers, they were married.  And they happily stayed that way.  It takes a special kind of love to use Poison Dwarf as a term of affection and get away with it.

Along came children, me and then Justine and various houses, gardens, jobs.  DIY was a big thing – I do recall growing up on several building sites – although I wonder if it should be called DIY when the person doing it is such a highly skilled tradesman.  The trade was pattern-making, though, which often meant that work wasn’t always pretty and seemed to take forever, but by God it was precise.  If he complimented your own DIY you knew you’d done a proper job.
He wasn’t a big disciplinarian as a father, as evidenced by him teaching me the art of the Digestive biscuit butty, or using a trip out for petrol as an excuse to buy Justine sweets, but he was impressively disciplined in himself.  He didn’t swear in front of us even under extreme pressure, like dropping a fireplace on his foot.  He also didn’t do money, he gave it all to mam and she gave him his spends.  They tried it the other way round, once, but that lasted all of three weeks before he saw sense.

As the children got older, friends and partners were welcomed as part of the family from the offset, and then along came grandchildren.  An old friend of mine once said, “You don’t know true love until you’ve got your first grandchild” and I think that applies here.  He definitely excelled at being a grandad.  There were more kids to play daft games with and give sweets to for a start, as well as him being there for their first steps.  As those grandchildren got older, he became a figure of stability and reliability when their home lives became complicated, even if that was just jumping in the car to get a broken key out of a lock or to give a slightly scary ride to hospital in an emergency.

There’s a lot more I could say but we really would be here for a very long time.

In reading the thoughts people sent me, two things stood out.  The first was dad’s kindness.  He had a type of empathy and a generosity of spirit that allowed him to get on with almost everybody, and he’d gladly help anybody out, often to his own inconvenience. 
The second was a kind of gentle stoicism.  He could justifiably have raged against increasing infirmity and a, frankly, bewildering variety of ailments, but instead he chose a quiet dignity.  He didn’t complain, he dealt with things and got on with stuff.

However, the worst hand that fate dealt dad, and mam, was the loss of Justine five years ago.  You don’t recover from a thing like that.  You can’t, it’s like losing a limb.  You have to adapt and learn to live with the scars and, if I’m brutally honest, I think that deep down he couldn’t.  The health issues he already had deteriorated increasingly quickly until the end.
But, in a way, he still got his wishes.  He went before Lorraine, he was spared the worst indignities of age and illness when you can’t do anything at all for yourself, and he went peacefully in his sleep.  He went to sleep and just stayed there, and that’s not a bad way to go.

Now, even with all the notes people gave me, I’ve still been talking about the man who was John Fitton from my own point of view, but one of the things I believe is that nobody is just one person.  We’re different – sometimes subtly, sometimes quite dramatically – depending on what we’re doing, our age and where we are and, especially, who we’re with.  We’re not just people, we’re elements of interconnected relationship.
With that in mind, I’d like to invite everybody to take a moment to reflect on who John Fitton was to you – to you, personally.  To me he was dad, with all the complexities that entails.  To you he was something else – husband, friend, grandad, big brother, father-in-law – a unique relationship that only you and he had, and only you and he could have had. 
If you feel it’ll help, please feel free to close your eyes, and we’ll take a minute . . .

. . .

. . . I’m going to finish with a poem.  Dad read a lot, and one of the things he liked to read was poetry.  I don’t know if he ever discovered Charles Bukowski, but I think he’d have liked him.  This is called The Laughing Heart.

Your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission
be on the watch
there are ways out

There is light somewhere
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness

Be on the watch
the gods will offer you chances
know them
take them

You can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life sometimes
and the more often you learn to do it
the more light there will be

Your life is your life
know it while you have it
you are marvellous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Tributes

“Stability was a rare thing in my early years, but Grandad John was always there, and remained so until his final day. He was a kind, generous and mischievous man, always ready to tell a tale of a cruel prank played on an apprentice or jokingly bicker with Nana. Age did not agree with him in the slightest but, despite his frustration with no longer being as able to knock about in the shed, or remodel an entire house at Nana’s request, he always seemed happy with his lot; that contentment in the face of increasing difficulty set an example for us all. I’ll miss his silly stories, his constantly broken computer, his unlimited supply of chocolate bars and mints and his relentless interest and approval in what I’ve been doing, even if I’d been doing something incomprehensibly stupid. Rest in peace, Grandad, and thank you for always being there.”
Emrys, grandson

“Sometime around my first year of high school, I came home to an empty house. I pulled out my keys and undid the bolt lock, or rather, I thought I did, but I guess I was feeling particularly strong that day because I snapped the key in half mid-turn with the metal still inside the lock. I’d never been in that situation before. I knew mum and dad weren’t available, so I called Grandad, hoping he’d have a solution. He said he did and rushed out. Commence waiting. During the wait, Phoebe turned up and I had to explain the situation. Commence more waiting and a paranoid worry that I’d be sleeping in the shed tonight. Eventually, Grandad pulled up, doddered up the stairs, tweezers in hand and pulled the metal out, all in about a minute. Turns out we were lucky that it was just a bolt and not an actual key. That probably would have needed a stronger pair of tweezers. We thanked him, he drove home, I explained to my parents why I suddenly needed a new bolt key and no one had to sleep in a shed.
One other memory does stick out to me (assuming Nana Loz doesn’t mind me pointing out one of her minor character flaws), and it happened maybe a year ago. It was our routine Sunday visit and the usual chat was happening. It would go: Nana talks, Grandad and I would try to talk and fail. He would sit up slightly, open his mouth and point his finger, ready to say something probably profound but be barely too slow against Nana, who surely would have made an incredible presenter had she gone into radio. We both tried at least twice that day and after Grandad’s second attempt, we shared a look. It was a short, shared moment of understanding and disappointment that lasted maybe 5 seconds but we both completely knew what the other was thinking. We sighed, shrugged shoulders at each other and normalcy quickly returned.”
Rowan, grandson

“To me he was like a dad and a second brother. He was in my life since I was 4 years old, so I feel very lucky and grateful for that. A wonderful, kind, lovely, funny man. He will be sadly missed by all the family and friends.”
Aleta, sister-in-law

“I’ve always liked the story my mum used to tell me. She used to say that she liked going filling up the car with granddad because he’d always let her get sweets from the shop when he went to pay. Kind, generous, gentleman are some of the words I’d use to describe him. I remember him chopping bits of worktop off when I was about 6, when he left my dad thought it was the best thing ever. I also love how much he loves nana Never forget how he still opened the car door for her every time she was getting in, right until he decided to pack driving in.”
Hannah, granddaughter

“He made me think more about my joinery. If Justine ever wanted me to rush I had to remind her that a compliment from John was worth more than anything. He was a quality craftsman and professional problem solver when it came to new ways of building, on top of being the driest comedian in the room and loving everyone. I’ve got to mention how good his driving was and his ability to scare the pants off you and his strength in never complaining about any of his illnesses and still going through the hernia operation with all else he had going on.”
Mat, close family friend