Michael Jeacock
Michael Jeacock died on December 14th, in St Nicholas Hospice at Bury St Edmund's, having written his last column, View From the Fen, there a few days before. "Sorry, this is the last column folks", "the final inky scribblings of a very contented man", was published on the day of his death.
HIS FUNERAL SERVICE , at St Mary's Church, Newmarket, was a true
celebration of his life. Nothing could say more about him than the choice of
hymns, 'I vow to thee my country', and 'Jerusalem', with
'Rule Britannia' to close, and that his final entrance and exit were to
the haunting strains of Amadeus Boldwicket's Red Hot Peppers Jazz Band.
Michael and Janet lived in Swaffham Bulbeck from 1962 to 1990 , first in Ivy Cottage, and then in the Merchant's House, where their lovely family, Sarah, Simon, Rachel and Naomi, grew up. The Merchant's House was surely the right setting for Michael and Janet: a house with a history, a walled garden, and a cellar, and comfortable eighteenth century rooms. There you can imagine Michael enjoying jugged fen hare and a decanter of claret, before reading Surtees or Dickens before a log fire, while one of a succession of black labradors dozes at his feet. The Jeacocks were all very much part of the village community - as mentioned in last month's Beacon, Janet edited the Grapevine column, as well as the Beacon itself - and Michael was an instantly recognizable and memorable figure as he strolled down Fen Lane or Commercial End with his dog, or across the Denny, a stroll always punctuated by lively conversation with everyone he met. Michael had a great gift for friendship. He was an expert raconteur, with an apparently inexhaustible supply of jokes and anecdotes, all delivered with effortless timing and usually in a dead -pan, throwaway manner. He could also be serious, and there are many areas of daily life that he minded about with deep passion: the landscape and the natural world, country sports, the traditional English way of life, traditional values such as decency, fairness, loyalty, patriotism. He was a champion of the elderly, of those who were down on their luck, of the individual; and the enemy of the pompous, the bureaucratic, the corporate. All this you could deduce from his unique column, View from the Fen, destined to become a collector's item, but it was an added bonus to have it straight from Michael himself.
Michael was born in Buxton, and educated at Bakewell, and his roots were set firmly in the Derbyshire countryside. His love of country sports came from a deep conviction about their traditional role in the fabric of social life. His friends came from all areas of the Cambridge and Cambridgeshire community, the city and the university, the game fairs and the racecourse, East Anglian shoots, the Farmer's Club or Trinity High Table. In recent years, Michael, like Janet, became a Blue Badge tour guide in Cambridge, and his eyes would light up with mischief as he pounced on some passing acquaintance, who would be transformed into an eminent scientist or eccentric don for the benefit of a group of foreign tourists. He and Janet collaborated on an excellent guide to Cambridge.
Michael was a great supporter and enthusiast. He must have lost count of the number of fetes he opened, cups he presented, after -dinner speeches he made. He did his National Service in the Joint Services School for Linguists at Bodmin, learning Russian, a mark of recognition for his razor-sharp intelligence - but talked little about it in public; however, he never missed joining the Remembrance Day parade with the British Legion. He was a long-term chairman of the Swaffhams cricket club - he would chair the AGM in ten minutes flat - and a faithful spectator and compere at the six -aside tournament long after he had moved to Newmarket. Afterwards, there might be a post -match wind-down in the Black Horse or the Royal Oak. Michael was especially fond of the Royal Oak, and of Bob and Vera Scrutton. The Oak was a place where you could celebrate a sporting achievement, commiserate about the disastrous running of a fancied horse., or genially set the world to rights.
And then there was his professional life. Michael was a notable journalist. He trained on the Derbyshire Times, joined the Daily Express in Manchester after his National Service, and then became the youngest news editor ever on the Daily Express in Fleet Street. Later, he went freelance, and some thirty years ago began writing his View from the Fen column for the Town Crier, before it also found a permanent home with the Newmarket Weekly News. Michael wrote these pieces in a richly idiosyncratic, slightly selfmocking, style, which enabled him to give vent to some fairly extreme and certainly politically incorrect opinions without giving any - well, much - offence. (I wonder whether the lawyers had to scan his columns with special attention.) The book drawn from his columns is a perpetual delight, very funny, often moving, a self -deprecating, warm chronicle of his own family, and a vivid record of a way of life under siege from urban bureaucracy.
Michael bore his last illness with characteristic bravery, and he was cared for unwaveringly by Janet. In recent months, he had become very thin, but the old twinkle and teasing sense of humour never left him. His was a huge personality, generous, warm, relishing life and the amazingly broad range of people from all walks of life with whom he came in contact. He was a real character, who would have been at home in the stories of Chaucer, or the plays of Shakespeare: in Shakespeare's words, 'There's a great spirit gone'.