NO POMP, just honest grief hallowed yesterday's remembrance of a man
whose very name confirmed his absence of pretension.
They called him John Smith, unadorned by any middle initial, and from
the earliest that name became a paradox and yet exactly right. For in
him was the gift of Everyman, and that made this John Smith an uncommon
individual.
His funeral, too, was to prove exceptional, and that would surely have
surprised him. But since his unexpected death on May 12 another
unexpected, better thing had happened. People, friends and strangers,
allies and opponents, had come together in a manner scarcely imaginable
these days for someone who made his way in the abused craft of politics.
In effect, but unofficially, this was a state funeral, staking out
John Smith's Parish Church of Cluny in Edinburgh's Morningside for a
footnote in the archives of our time. It was a day of unseasonable
chill, dark clouds over the Braid Hills darkening thin sunshine as a
thousand or so mourners gathered behind crush barriers at the junction
of Cluny Avenue and Braid Road.
From 9.30am people had been arriving, the invited dignitaries either
bused in from the Palace of Holyroodhouse, or travelling in limousines
to stand patiently in line before filing into the sandstone purity of
the church.
It was here that John Smith, an elder, worshipped unobtrusively right
up to the last Sunday before he died. The church's physical grandeur is
in its plainness, ornamented only by shafts of light from fine stained
glass windows, the largest depicting the four evangelists by the
pre-Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones.
By 11am the precision of the arrangements was manifest, the bustle of
arrivals complicated by security demands which some had feared would mar
the day all subtly avoided. Edinburgh's unshowy experience at summit
handling was skilfully brought into play.
''His life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him that nature
might stand up and say to all the world: This Was a Man,'' proclaimed
the minster, the Rev. George Munro. If a man is defined by his
associates, his mourners strengthen his dimension.
The Prime Minister and Norma Major were in the pews. So were the
Speaker of the House of Commons, Betty Boothroyd, the former Prime
Minister Edward Heath, most members of the Shadow Cabinet, ambassadors
and statesmen from overseas, an ecumenical squad of senior churchmen,
those prominent in law, the arts, trade unions and local government.
Those curio entertainers, Fran and Anna, arrived in imperial purple.
That other curio from another palace of varieties, Nicky Fairbairn, came
in the full mourning rig of a Victorian undertaker, with that socialist
bloom of Europe, the red carnation, lighting his grey lapel.
Lord Callaghan, the former Labour Prime Minister, represented the
Queen.
All morning people assembled, some tearfully, some fixing their
sadness firm behind solemn faces. There was only one soloist during the
service, Kenna Campbell, whose glorious voice singing Psalm 23 in Gaelic
rose into the rafters like a great melodic sob.
And everyone did what Donald Dewar expressed so movingly in his
address: ''At times of loss you remember and remember . . .''
Funerals, by their ritual and tender regard, can help to overcome a
terrible truth, and that vision of the elegant, graceful dignity
suffusing the six bereft Smith women -- Elizabeth, John's wife, their
daughters, Sarah, Jane and Catherine, and his two youngers sisters, Mary
and Annie -- was marked by a silent charge of hope from the crowd that
yesterday's service might bring some comfort to the simple sorrows that
enter every life.
When was there last a funeral like this for a politician? Not Harold
Macmillan's in 1986. Not Anthony Eden's in 1977. People pondered this as
they stood four deep in the road at the corner where the Hermitage bar
overlooks Cluny Avenue. People discussed it, also, as they waited to
move inside the church, recalling that no member at Westminster had
earned such a wide ranging send-off since the state funeral of Churchill
on January 30, 1965.
But if John Smith's public day had all the makings of a national
occasion, it wasn't burdened with pageantry or stuffy acclaim. The death
of a remarkable politician had taken that most private act beyond the
realm of his family, but this gathering of thousands remained impressive
for its intimacy.
And there was laughter. ''Those who remembered him as dark,
sober-suited and safe,'' said Donald Dewar, ''knew not the man. He could
start a party in an empty room, and often did.''
Lord Irvine of Lairg, Shadow Lord Chancellor and a close friend for 30
years, recalled how John Smith would relish the absurd with a wonderful
sense of comedy. And before that address James Gordon, also an old pal
from Glasgow University debating days and now managing director of Radio
Clyde, offered some insight into his friend's infectious love of fun.
He remembered the times when John Smith might regale a spontaneous
soiree, however lofty, with a fine rendition of a Sunday school hymn
from his Ardrishaig childhood, accompanying the words with hand
gestures:
Seek them out
Get them gone
All the little rabbits in fields of corn.
Envy, jealousy, malice, and pride
They must never in my heart abide.
This was a day when the inter-party truce which had welled up and
across the floor of the Commons last week held good. After the funeral
the Prime Minister and Mrs Major spent 90 minutes at the reception in
Parliament House. There Gordon Brown and many other Labour MPs reached
out to say simply: ''Thank you for coming.''
A day, too, for snatched discussions across borders, with John Major
spotting the SDLP's John Hume from his car and winding down the window
to contemplate with him the developing situation in Northern Ireland.
All this from an Edinburgh pavement.
And Tony Benn hitching a lift back to London in the PM's private
plane. ''You're most welcome, Tony,'' said Mr Major, ''but don't tell
anybody else or they'll all want to come.''
Many MPs travelled from the South at their own expense to honour John
Smith. Many also sent flowers, placed on the lawns outside the church.
Among them, too, were wreaths from prison officers, pink roses from No.
10, gold blooms from Ian Lang and the Scottish Office, and a wreath from
the Ambassdor of the Russian Federation. Glenda Jackson left a small
posy of white freesia on the grass. The Co-operative Movement sent an
emblem worked like an old trade union banner in white and purple petals.
There was a saltire of white and blue flowers and from the Highlands
one hand-written card on a red bouquet which read: ''Remembering John,
Hairy to his childhood friends from Ardrishaig.''
He died on Ascension Day and will be buried today, the eve of
Pentecost, on the island of Iona. The savage pain of sudden loss aside,
he could not have timed it better. John Smith, for Everyman we say, God
bless you.
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