My dad's funeral service was held at Charter Chapel at Canley Crematorium on the 27th of September 2024 at 1:45pm. The rain thankfully stopped for a bit, and there was a great turnout to bid Bernard farewell - the sun appropriately poked out towards the end of the ceremony, expertly performed by celebrant Robert Brindley - who distilled the conversation we'd had into the essence of the man who was my dad.
Dad's memorial page can be found here, for anybody who would like to see or leave a tribute - or donate to the wonderful work performed by Myton Hospice in his name.
The order of service is reprinted below - click to embiggen.
Tara's wonderful tribute to Dad;
Oh Bernard, where to start?
How the first Boxing day I spent Chez Court for cold cuts, bubble and squeak and the best pickled onions ever, made by Irene. I made a really rather untoward joke about scout masters, not realising he'd been one himself. I thought I was in hot water, but he, Irene and David laughed it off.
Or maybe when he and I, along with our friend Tom, got season tickets for Coventry City, the season we got relegated to league 2. We didn’t bother again after that...Sorry about that Cov fans. I was sad that he was too frail to accompany me to Wembley the past few years City have got there (He’ll STILL be sore about that FA Cup Semi, I’ll tell you that now).
Or perhaps the pride in his voice when after one match, we popped into his local where and he proclaimed to his friends that my language on the terraces was awful and unladylike, with an enormous grin. Bernard always smiled with his eyes, always a glint in them.
How about the quizzes where he'd contribute what he could, then claiming to know the answer, just after the quiz master gave it. Funny how that was always the way. But mostly, I'll remember the enormous smile, raucous laugh, the fella who'd pop for a pint with his pals, have a go on karaoke, play a game of bingo and didn't take life too seriously.
I'm happy that I know my last words to him were "I love you" as his were to me.
Love you, Bernard.
Slainte.
And here's mine;
Bernard Court, in a trait common to many Coventrians, was not a man given to enthusiasm. I remember watching Terminator 2 back in the nineties with him literally sitting on the edge of his seat, barely blinking, and managing to go a whole two hours without a cigarette break – which back then, for him, was nothing short of miraculous. The end credits rolled, and I asked him what he’d thought of it.
“It was alright,” he tutted, and that was as high a recommendation as anything got. Dad was a man of simple desires and lived for the pleasures of a pint, a match on the telly, a stroke of a dog, a burst of karaoke, and the company of friends.
Dad was stoic; facing his cancer with a sense of humour and dignity I hope that I can show when confronted with my own mortality. Dad was frustrating; wildly underestimating the strength of foreign beers resulting in me having to spend my stag do looking after him in Belgian A&E. Dad was hilarious; ordering a pizza for the first time and spreading the garlic dip over the top of it with a knife as though it were butter, not realising it was a dip and not a spread. Dad was unpredictable; a man who’d never left Europe – who barely left Coventry - who suddenly decided on a whim to go on a Caribbean cruise with his friend Jody, and who gave up cigarettes suddenly after smoking 40 a day for the best part of fifty-five years. And Dad was competitive; as aggressive a domino player as you’d ever meet, and equally as vicious with a crossword or with Wordle.
We’d exchange our Wordle results every day on WhatsApp, a feat about as technical as Dad could achieve. If he beat me, I wouldn’t hear the end of it – if I beat him, it would be ignored and the subject quickly changed. He was as competitive with the cancer that would eventually best him – one of the last conversations we’d had was how pleased he was he’d beaten his original prognosis by more than a year.
I shall continue to send my daily Wordle score to him, even though it pains me I won’t get a reply.
So, from this Coventrian,
Dad, you were alright.
In closing, Mum and Dad on the surface seemed like the oddest couple, seemingly arguing more than they ever spoke. But I remember one Blackpool holiday – given some money for pop and crisps and allowed to run riot around the tower, I walked around the balcony of the ballroom dance floor – and they there were, waltzing, with eyes only for each other.
I’d like to think they’re dancing now.
Thank you to all who knew him, who attended his service or paid their respects in their own way, to those who donated to Myton Hospice and those who came to see him in his final months and weeks. Words can not express how grateful we are to you.
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