The Day is Dimmer Now

Colin Buckland
 8th June 2020

He was a good man
never raised his voice
or had an evil word to say
walked not in fear of God
but holding God's great hand
not lighting a flickering candle
but one almighty flame
which rose unto God's heaven
in Colin's blessed name

Annie Elliott

My eyes are smarting still, unable to contain the welling tears. The man I have known for nearly 60 years has left us. We met on the first day of term at our new university, both reading physics, both making a bee line to sign up for the sailing stand. At 18, neither of us could sail, but went each week determined to practice, and to learn the hard way through many capsizes. We shared flats together in London for our three years together, and his home, first in Watford, then the IoW when his parents retired there, became my own. We were still sailing together until Ann and I sold our last boat.

The news came through this morning at 8:15, within half an hour of his death.

Even the dogs sense the loss, sitting at my feet with ears laid back, tails low and eyes heavy, pawing their sympathy as though sensing grief. Excepting my brothers and his sisters, with our parents passing we became the two who had known each other longest. Closer than a brother, he was my best friend and  utterly dependable and honest, ever in good humour, with a ready song or poem to his lips to entertain or lift our hearts. He had the joy of knowing from an early age what he wanted to do with his life: become a teacher, first at a school in Sierra Leone where he met his wife, Ann, then in Cambridge, finally at the European School in Luxembourg where he worked until he retired. He was one of those rare people who did exactly what he had set out to do: help youngsters to delight in learning so that, whatever their own vocation, they might reach their potential with a love for science and the curiosity and wonder it engenders.

Music was his other great love and passion, winning many eulogies for the work he did in founding and supporting local choirs in Luxembourg. Ann and I met up with him in Edinburgh soon after we started our lives together in Saltburn, when he and his choir went to the Festival to present the world premiere of a St Andrew's Mass they had written. We had little money then, and slept on the kitchen floor of the apartment they had rented. People kept coming through in the morning, stepping over us to make drinks.

Now, we wished to light a candle and add a prayer in his memory, but the churches are locked as though the state is trying to suppress religious freedom. We went therefore to the Marian Shrine at Clare Priory, which is an ancient wooden building with open timbers to one side, only to find they have added a glass protecting wall across it, and the ancient interior is being decorated, so all chairs and candle stands were gone. We therefore went into the ancient ruins where the alter still stands open to the air, and there in an ancient niche we placed our candles out of the wind and stood in silent, prayerful memory to a great man. The world is darker now, the silence lies more heavy by his going.

The Marian Shrine being refurbished

Lighting candles to Colin at Clare Priory