William Dawson (21 Feb 1930 - 17 Feb 2018)

In loving memory of William Arthur Dawson who sadly passed away on 17th February 2018

Eulogy info for Arthur Dawson

Arthur was born in Beeston on 21st February 1930 eldest child of Flo and Alf Dawson. The family moved to 36 Harrington Street, Mansfield, whilst Arthur was very young. He went to St John’s School and joined the local Air Cadets when he was old enough.
Alf Dawson was employed by Whiteley Radio & Electrical firm and was honoured for his work for the war effort by being awarded the BEM. Alf, Flo and Arthur went to London for the medal ceremony. The highlight for Arthur wasn’t as you would think going to the Palace but to the Palais de dance in Hammersmith to hear some of the great dance bands play. Arthur lost track of time and missed the last transport home. He was scolded by his father when he returned to the hotel in the early hours of the morning having had to walk across London following his night out.
Arthur’s love of music continued, in particular, his love of big band music which was being played in all the dance halls around the area. He would save up and then go and buy the latest gramaphone record of his favourite bands from Sid Booth’s on Queen Street. Flo, Arthur’s Mum could dance and taught Arthur to dance in their small living room at Harrington Street. To afford the entrance fee to the dance hall Arthur would collect empty bottles and return them to the local shop and claim the deposits.
Arthur’s sister Pat was born 19th December 1943. However he didn’t see much of her as he left school at 14 and joined his father Alf at his workplace, Whiteleys. At the end of his first working week Arthur was so excited to show his Mum his paypacket but this coincided with his Mum serving up his favourite teatime treat – “fish and chips” - so he left the paypacket on the table whilst he had his tea. Following the tasty supper his Mum accidentally gathered up Arthur’s paypacket with the chip papers and put them on the fire. Despite this incident fish and chips have always been his favourite tea.
In 1948 when Arthur was 17 he was called up to do his National Service and as part of his two years did a tour of Trieste. It was during his time on leave that he met his wife to be at a local dance. Arthur would arrange to meet Betty inside the Palais de dance as he couldn’t afford to pay for both of them. They were married at St John’s church Mansfield on December 22nd 1951.
Initially they lived with Arthur’s parents before moving into their first home on Padley Hill. They then began saving up for their dream home. In the late 1950s they bought a plot of land on Peel Road and had plans drawn up for a 2 bed bungalow. They loved this property and it was their family home for about 15 years. Throughout their married life Arthur took great pride in looking after their homes. He would turn his hand to painting and decorating, DIY and electrical repairs.
Arthur left Whiteley’s in 1954 and went to work for the East Midlands Electricity Board where he remained until his retirement in 1990.
Vivien was born on 1st December 1960. Arthur was a loving and devoted Dad. He worked long hours and took on extra shifts to earn more money to be able to support his young family. Arthur would often be working over Christmas but would always come home to see Vivien open her presents. One favourite gift was a starter box of Lego which Arthur loved playing with almost as much as Vivien. She would set him a challenge of something he was to build for her each night. Each morning Vivien was always excited to hunt for the Lego structure created by her Dad and she was never disappointed.
Arthur would always be the envy of all his work colleagues when he returned from each of the family’s annual holidays regailing them with how wonderful the weather had been. In the early years Arthur, Betty and Vivien would join Arthur’s parents and holiday in Wales. Alf and Flo particularly liked Aberystwyth. Vivien also recalls many holidays where Arthur and Betty set off with no particular booking just going on spec and they always had a fabulous time.
In 1974 Arthur and Vivien were watching a documentary about Scouting and the organisation’s need for good leaders. Vivien said “You could do that Dad”. It clearly resonated with Arthur and soon afterwards he became assistant scout leader at St Mary’s Church. Arthur studied hard to gain his wood badge and qualify as Scout Leader. He then transferred to St Augustine’s as Scout Leader. Betty supported Arthur in everything he did including being quartermaster on several scout camps. Arthur always endeavoured to teach the boys Godly principles.
In 1974 Arthur and Betty moved to 9 Clifton Grove, a lovely bungalow with a large kitchen and a fabulous garden. Arthur installed a pond which gave him great pleasure. The Dawson family attended St Peter’s church for several years; Vivien and Betty were confirmed there and Vivien was a member of both St Peter’s and Youth Group and CYFA. In the late 70’s Arthur and Betty became members of St Augustine’s church where Arthur became church warden.
In 1985 Billy Graham came to the Sheffield Football Stadium as part of Mission England. At the end of the meeting Billy Graham gave an altar call and Arthur found that he couldn’t remain in his seat and felt compelled to go down as instructed onto the football pitch. He felt that he wanted to tell God that he was available for whatever He wanted him to do.
In August 1986 Arthur was very ill, suffering two heart attacks and a cardiac arrest. Whilst unconscious Arthur was asked by Jesus “ Why do you want to go back?”. He replied that he had a wife and daughter to look after. Arthur was aware of another shadowy being communicating with Jesus and was convinced it seemed pleased with his response as it was dancing up and down. To Arthur’s surprise Jesus asked him the same question a second time and this time his response was “if you make me well then I will work for you”. With this Jesus turned towards the shadowy figure, lifted his hands, the shadowy figure fled. Jesus then walked away into the most beautiful brightness. Arthur’s heart began beating on its own and after 4 months convalescing Arthur was back at work.
Little did he know what adventures there would be in store for him and Betty in their twilight years.
Arthur felt drawn to the “Church in the Centre” now known as the Life Church South Mansfield and they threw themselves into the life of the church – helping with Meeting Point; Sunday Club; joined the leadership team; even acting in a theatrical production created by David Addison. Arthur also began leading services; preaching and teaching.
Betty and Arthur were very hospitable and would be happy to have guests staying. They looked after Gabriel and Dimitri, church pastors from Romania; Peter Gammons, a well known Christian speaker & also members of mission teams working in Mansfield.
Arthur and Betty also became members of the Prison Christian Fellowship and would help run services for the inmates of Ranby Prison. They also were volunteers for the Probation Service and would provide transport for families visiting loved ones in prison.
Through reading Peter Scothern’s book “Risen with healing in his wings” Arthur wanted to meet the author. From their first meeting Peter and his wife Rita struck up a friendship with Betty and Arthur and through Peter’s ministry they became part of “Forwarding Relief to Eastern Europe” a project which would take them into some amazing places in the world and forge deep friendships with some unlikely characters.
Arthur’s first overseas trip was to Poland to deliver some much needed hospital supplies. His travelling companions were Arnold and Julian. How they squeezed everything into the Volvo they were travelling in was nothing short of a miracle.
Next Arthur embarked on relief missions to Romania and together with John Shooter they set off in convoy driving 7.5 ton lorries packed with goods donated by people in the Mansfield area.
The mercy mission most of you will be aware of is the one Arthur and Betty made together to Turkey to take relief aid to the Kurds who had fled from their homes and were living on the mountainside just over the Turkish border. This mission was covered by the Daily Mail – the Chad re-ran the story after Betty died in 2014.
Arthur and Betty travelled together on the final two relief missions which were to Albania.
In 2001 Betty and Arthur celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Vivien had organised a few surprises for the occasion one of which was a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce to pick them up and take them to the hotel where they were going to be having dinner with family and friends. Arthur’s brother-in-law Gerald was driving into the carpark of the hotel behind the RR and not knowing about Vivien’s surprise commented that he thought it must be Arthur in the car in front as the male passenger in the back of the car was wearing a flat cap.
On December 28th 2002, Arthur proudly walked Vivien down the aisle at St John’s for her marriage to Danny. Following the wedding Arthur and Betty gained a new lease of life as they enjoyed many happy times with Vivien and Danny and their grandchildren James, Richard and Lucy. Together as a family we had holidays in the Yorkshire Dales, Northumberland, Oberamergau, Rome & Florence.
Betty and Arthur were delighted to be able to attend the wedding of James and Lizi in August 2011. In December of the same year they celebrated their Diamond wedding anniversary with close family and a telegram from the Queen.
Through the Autumn of 2013 Betty’s health was steadily deteriorating and she passed away on 28th February 2014. Vivien supported Arthur in living independently for a further year until it was untenable. Arthur moved into Avery Mews Care Home on Jan 28th 2015.
Initially Arthur drove everyone mad by filling his Rolator with objects that had been left lying around. As frustrating as this was it was sad that this ceased when he became immobile.
Arthur’s great grand-daughter Aurora was born in 2016. He clearly enjoyed seeing her when they were up visiting family.
Arthur thoroughly enjoyed his wishing well experience last year. The Care Home had hired a full drum kit for a day especially for Arthur to play. Everyone was really surprised at how well he handled the drumsticks and the rhythm he could beat out. So for Christmas we’d bought him a Drumkit play mat for him to practice on to his heart’s content.
Whenever Viv visited Arthur at Avery Mews she would always put his favourite music on for him he would become Glenn Miller and conduct his orchestra whenever he heard it played. In fact even when seemingly sleeping soundly his feet would begin tapping as he heard the opening bars of “In the mood” or “Take the A train” –two of his absolute favourites.
Arthur died on 17th February and his death came as quite a shock to us as just the week before he had been his usual self. We were grateful for having time in his last few days to sit with him, play him his favourite music and read to him. Amongst the Bible passages that we read to him in his final hours were the three that we have chosen for our service today.
I remember that a favourite saying of Arthurs was
“If you want to make God laugh tell him your plans”.
Arthur knew that the plans we have for ourselves are not always the same as the plans that God has for us. Psalm 139 reminds us that God knows us from before we are born and has plans for us. In verse 16 of that psalm it says:
“in your book were written
All the days that were formed for me,
When none of them as yet existed.”

That Psalm also reminds us that God is with us throughout our life watching, over us and guiding us and that his love continues for us even after death.
We chose the reading from Matthew 25 because if anyone pit into practise what that reading was all about it was Arthur and Betty. They saw people who were hungry and lacking in clothes and they wanted to feed them and help them. They saw people in prison and they visited them. They saw people who were sick and they took care of them. In the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus made clear that everyone in the world is our neighbour and Betty and Arthur looked into the faces of people in Poland, Romania, Albania and Kurdistan and saw the face of their neighbour and helped them. So I have no doubt that Betty and Arthur will be numbered with the sheep who will be put at Jesus’ right hand and who will be blessed by the father.

It has been very hard for those of us who loved Arthur to watch his health deteriorate over the last few years because of the progressive effect that dementia was having on him. But we know that it was just a passing time of suffering and that a greater glory and time of happiness awaits him. As the reading from the book of Revelation that we will hear in a few moments time reminds us God has great plans for his children. He has planned for a new heaven and a new earth and he will live with us, as its says in that passage:

“See the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
They will be his peoples.
And God himself will be with them;
He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
Mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
For the first things have passed away.”

So as we mourn Arthur today we can take comfort from the plans that God has for Arthur and for each one of us. We look forward joyfully to that wonderful time that God has planned for us when there will be no more suffering and sorrow but only joyful life lived in the presence of God. We say thank you to our Lord for all that Arthur meant to all of us here and for all that did for so many people in his life. And we commend him to God’s loving care with the words of the nunc dimmitus:

“Lord now let your servant depart in peace, your word has been fulfilled”.

Amen