Farewell Uncle, an eccentric to the end

JUSTIN WEBB, 57, presents Radio 4’s Today programme. He lives in London with his wife Sarah Gordon, a company director, and their three children – twins Martha and Sam, 17, and Clara, 13.

I HAVE been thinking a lot in recent days about resilience: the ability of our children to cope with oddity, change, setbacks. In part that’s because my twins are reaching university age, but mostly because of Uncle Oliver.

My elderly uncle died the other day. He wasn’t a constant presence in our lives – I was the BBC’s man in Washington and Brussels, and my children were all born abroad, so elderly relatives in the UK used to be a summer phenomenon – but we have been back in Britain for nearly a decade and have been regular visitors to his retirement home in Somerset.

And in a politically correct world, a predictable world, a cosseted world, Uncle Oliver made quite a change.

He had been an Army officer, then an Arabic-speaking spy, then an arms dealer. He lost a finger in a gun accident.

Among his pet hates were people who drank water (it’s for washing!), people who didn’t smoke (never did me any harm!), bad drivers, organised religion, and the BBC. He would puff away at a cigar – he offered my son Sam one when he was 13 – and tell us Britain had been going downhill since public schools abandoned compulsory boxing. Not views my children often hear at their trendy South London schools, or indeed in our normal family discussions.

I loved it that they had some time with a genuine eccentric. On journeys home in the car after a smoke-filled visit, the kids would be unusually contemplative.

Then, a few days ago, he died and left the following instruction: no funeral. No memorial. Cremation with no one present. So I had to tell the children that their uncle, this character, was not only dead but refusing, from the grave, for them to have any chance to say goodbye.

Nor has he left them any gift in his will. I think the whole lot is going to a military benevolent fund. Part of me is genuinely sad at the brutality of this departure. But part of me thinks: ‘Well done, Uncle Oliver. Bravo.’ You have been true to the last and your memory, like cigar smoke, will be pungent and unforgettable.

HE WAS AN ARMY OFFICER, A SPY… AND AN ARMS DEALER

Justin’s column will appear monthly.