Extraordinary LIVES
IT MIGHT seem strange that the owner of an antiques shop in Portsmouth should spend decades of his life helping the people of faraway Kurdistan, but Brian was no ordinary man.
He was a devout Christian for whom nothing was more important than this mission, though when he started he had no idea who the Kurds were! Brian was one of five siblings and their father was a railway worker. When he left school at 15, he got a job at the local Co-op store, where I started working, too. I’d see him at discos run by the Co-op social club, but it was only a few years later, when he was best man at my sister Isabel’s wedding, that I got to know him better.
We married in 1966 and a year later our son Peter was born. Brian had different jobs, including managing his brother Jack’s hi-fi store, long-distance lorry driving and working as a care assistant for people who had been moved into the community after the closure of a local psychiatric hospital. Then he ran a shop selling bric-abrac, which he enjoyed more than anything. In 1984, he opened Squirrels selling antiques and collectibles. Not long after the 1988 Halabja massacre, in which thousands of civilians were killed
by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons, Brian made it his calling to support the Kurds. One day he put up a banner in the window of Squirrels: ‘Save the Kurds.’ When I asked who they were, he replied he didn’t know, but felt he had received a mission from God.
His faith had helped him overcome problems earlier in his life and he wanted to support others.
He started raising money and making annual journeys to the Middle East, visiting Kurdistan and Kurdish communities in Iraq and Turkey. These trips could be dangerous. On one occasion, Brian was sleeping in his van when there was a night-time bombing raid. Luckily, he was unhurt by the flying shrapnel. Another time he was arrested on his arrival in Baghdad. His friend Canon Andrew White, known as the Vicar of Baghdad, managed to get him released. Brian was also friendly with Judge Rauf Rashid, a Kurd who oversaw Saddam’s trial. He was there when the judge borrowed a pen from Andrew and returned it saying: ‘I’ve just signed Saddam’s death warrant.’ In 2019, Brian shut down Squirrels due to falling sales. The following year, with help from friends, he opened the Hiwa (Hope) Centre to advise Portsmouth’s Kurds and give free English lessons.
He also helped create the Garden of Hope, a memorial to the Halabja victims. As well as being deeply missed by his family, including our two grandchildren, I know he’ll remain in the hearts of the Kurdish people. n BRIAN FUTCHER, born September 24, 1943; died March 22, 2022, aged 78.