I never imagined this day would come - you, strong as a horse, brave as a bear - you now underground, and all my crowding memories in your stead: the places we saw, the times we had, our expeditions, which were always purposeful adventures. You had a way of condensing action, like a lens with the rays of the sun; of gathering purposes from a frayed spray of ideas; seizing an idea then running with it - to chaos or glory, failure or success.
You inherited your father Adam's instrumental, but slightly unhinged and experimental, approach to life. Mythic passion was your driver. You're the sort of man who'd cut his way through forests, axe in hand with tinder & flint in his pocket. You'd climbed trees in order to see further, like Strider scouting a way through Mirkwood. You'd know how to play a tune on a hand-made whistle or squeeze drinking water from moss. You are just the sort of man I'd want in my tribe. Your passion spanned trees and songs, handicrafts and tools, hounds and gunpowder.
- Remembering that time at Hellions Barton when we made a bomb and pushed it deep into the clay of a river bank. When it went bang and after the smoke and spray had cleared we found we had almost dammed the stream.
- Or trespassing into the gloomy woods at Heyford Hall on Dartmoor, where Arthur Conan Doyle got his inspiration for 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. Setting up sheeps' skulls on a row of stakes. "What are you doing on my land"? the man demanded to know "Just doing some Ju-Ju, sir!", replied Jonathan coolly, "Well clear orff and take those bloody skulls with you".
- New Year, 2015, with Bede and Beaumont in the South Downs, treading in the footsteps of Edward Thomas, climbing up through a slippery chalk wood, with badger setts and prehistoric flint flakes under foot; each tree a storied thing, a bearer of tales or, potentially, timber.
Your generosity. When I was ill you drove 175 miles - and back - to bring me a load of fire wood.
I cannot understand how all your strength has been laid low. Who was your foe: a treacherous branch, or your own brave inattention? Whatever, the wood elves have taken you for their own, my friend, and you have gone with them into the West.
We find ourselves standing here, alone in the Grey Havens, humming our wistful songs.
I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.
You are forever in my heart, my friend.
You are gone with the stars. You are off rolling, like Beaumont, with Orion. I
know one day I'll join you.
