Empty Chairs

Empty Chairs

Christmas,
a time to remember
a time for those who are gone,
and those who cannot be here –
those familiar dear faces,
with the now vacant chairs
we miss those we have loved –
the absent and dead.
So raise glass with a tear
"God please keep them safe
those who cannot be here."

Annie Elliott

Asked if I ever had a hero, someone I looked up to in my youth, someone admired, I usually say no. I had one or two 'good' teachers, who taught well and whose lessons have stayed with me. One especially was the English teacher at Caludon Castle School, Mr Bennett, who gave me a love for Milton, but none were inspirational as role models. I had no school-boy 'crushes', I did not admire the athletic ones or the high achievers, for each one of us has some gift – why should one be favoured over another? But some people I did admire more than others: Victor Daniels who gave me my first freelance work, with huge encouragement; Sir Allen McClay, founder of Galen Pharmaceuticals and Almac Sciences, who took me on board as a pharmaceutical medic in 2003, and with whose companies I have worked ever since; but both these men are now dead.

Now too, we hear the news that Sister Wendy has died today. She I never met, but only admired from afar for her television series on art. The Sunday Times slated her once in a review, calling her an "old bat-like figure, fixated on Freudian imagery', to which I wrote a vigorous defense. The letter was published, and I had a treasured reply from Sister Wendy saying my words "assuaged the hurt". I thought that was a lovely phrase, and assuaged was a word I never used, but is now for ever associated with her memory. Alas, she stopped broadcasting after the criticism, for she was genuinely modest, and retreated to her caravan in the grounds of her Norfolk nunnery.

Another word I learnt, probably when I was but eight or nine years old, was from The Eagle, when Captain Dan Dare told Digby to press three buttons "simultaneously". This was a word never used in our household, or by any of my friends, and I had to look it up. I think this as much as Milton was the foundation of my love for our English language, its wonderful vocabulary and rich rhythms.

I think most of my heroes, even now, are fictional: people like Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls. He was everything I admired: a true professional and the best at the job he loved; loyal, trustworthy and honest. Even his enemies said he never told a lie; and even at the risk of losing his greatest bet, he won it with guts and integrity. A true hero.