Now! Then! An unexpected gesture from Richard Scurr, watchmaker, at the Thirsk burial of John Pick Allison, solicitor

Excerpt

Quite early in the term I was summoned home, for my father died on 8th September 1865. Mr Jex-Blake told me this bad news with inimitably gentle kindness, but it was a crushing blow, and I remember seeing an all-black railway engine at Rugby station as I departed. This seemed exactly suited to the occasion. I was met at Thirsk Station by Mr Arrowsmith, the Rev T. Walker, of Sleights, and Mr John Hodgson, of Northallerton, the executors of my father’s will, and with them went to Kilvington. It was a house of gloom indeed, but there is no need to dwell on that. I attended the funeral at Thirsk, and to me the most memorable incident in connection with it is that an old, deaf watchmaker, named Dicky Scurr, went up to the graveside after the service and threw a rose down on the coffin. I never knew what was the cause of this kindly tribute, but it must have been a good one.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

The funeral date is from the parish register.

His mother died shortly afterwards:

Less than two months after [another] letter was written my mother was dead – 12th July 1866 – and I had thus lost both parents within a year.

It is better not to dwell on mournful incidents of the past. Again Mr Jex-Blake had broken the bad news to me with kindly words, and as I waited at Rugby station that time I saw a black railway engine with just a green patch on it. I interpreted this to mean that my mother was still alive, and she was so on my arrival at home, just sufficiently to know me, but two nights later I was sent hurriedly to the Rectory to summon Mr Kingsley, whose house door had been left open so that I could go straight in and up to his bedroom. He woke up and came along within ten minutes. The end was very near, though it did not actually come until late in the following afternoon.

Let us pass on, for the blow had fallen, and reminiscences of it are futile.

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Original

Quite early in the term I was summoned home, for my father died on 8th September 1865. Mr Jex-Blake told me this bad news with inimitably gentle kindness, but it was a crushing blow, and I remember seeing an all-black railway engine at Rugby station as I departed. This seemed exactly suited to the occasion. I was met at Thirsk Station by Mr Arrowsmith, the Rev T. Walker, of Sleights, and Mr John Hodgson, of Northallerton, the executors of my father’s will, and with them went to Kilvington. It was a house of gloom indeed, but there is no need to dwell on that. I attended the funeral at Thirsk, and to me the most memorable incident in connection with it is that an old, deaf watchmaker, named Dicky Scurr, went up to the graveside after the service and threw a rose down on the coffin. I never knew what was the cause of this kindly tribute, but it must have been a good one.

167 words.