Jack's Dead


One of my fellow employees died this weekend. Jack was 88, he died suddenly at home in his armchair. It might seem odd to employ somebody who was 88 but he was fit, mentally alert and made the fifty mile round trip from his home in the sticks three times a week, he was also my bosses father in-law.

He referred to himself as the firms 'cashier' but since Squirrel's departure at the end of February he had taken on a few extra duties and I put a sign on his door a few weeks ago which said 'Quartermasters Office - Please Knock and Wait' - he saw the funny side of it.

He'd has quite a life, he served in WW2 and was actually put on a charge by Monty himself for swearing under his breath, Monty was somebody who disliked all swearing. Jack was involved in D-Day, Arnheim and when he left the army he worked for BP travelling across Europe until he retired in the early eighties.

During the football season we would begin each Monday by discussing the weekends results, he was a Preston N.E fan as he originally came from Lancashire, although he didn't sound like a Lancastrian, years in the Army had smoothed the edges. He never understood cricket but his big passion over the past five or so years had been computers and he often came to me with queries on various aspects of IT, he recently installed a router at home so he could work in the shed!

He wasn't great at his job but he was better than a lot of people his age, the job was really an excuse to get out of the house three times a week and some rest from caring for his wife who has alzheimers.

He was a good bloke and as far as I'm concerned you can't get better than that.