Jack Eldred (6 Jun 1926 - 5 Dec 2019)

In loving memory of Jack Eldred who sadly passed away on 5th December 2019. The following is a copy of the Eulogy given by his youngest son Nick at the church service on 20 December 2019.

Good morning everybody and thank you very much for coming today to remember and commemorate the life of my father, Jack Eldred. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Jack’s youngest son, Nick, and I am speaking today on behalf of my two brothers, Peter and Chris, as well as our partners and children.

As many of you are aware, Dad was a staunch believer in the Christmas card, and throughout his life maintained the habit of sending cards to a long list of friends and family every year without fail. Even this year, despite his poor health, he was prepared again for this tradition. Although he was unable to send them, Peter had the idea to once again send his personalized card to friends as a way of letting the people he cared about know of his death. We want to thank you all for the many emails and notes we have received.

Overwhelmingly people have commented on how generous he was with his time over the years to help them with a wide range of problems; either giving sound advice or practical help fixing things. He was good at both. Being the son of a plumber he was practical and loved to fix and make things, and the wide range of tools and machinery in his garage attests to this. He even added to these skills in his 40s by going to woodwork classes on a weekly basis at the local school. Given this fascination with how things worked and new ideas, he always loved a new gadget. He was an early adopter of digital watches and calculators and was a committed user of his iPhone and computer in a way that was impressive for a man of his generation and age.

I mentioned that he helped with tricky problems – whether financial or personal. We were touched by a comment from his long-term work bank employee, who mentioned that she once made a major error in transferring money for an overseas payment and expected an angry customer when she told him. However, he was kind and patiently helped her fix the problem.

Dad lived to 93 and is from the pre-Second World War generation that is nearly gone now. He was born in 1926 and grew up during the great depression that impacted the lifelong behaviour of so many people from that generation – instilling careful planning for the future and a certain level of frugality on the knowledge that the bad times could come again. He was 13 years old at the outbreak of the second world war and while many children were sent away to the country, his family sent him to high school in Stamford so he wasn’t too far from home. He also recently told me that Stamford was safe from being bombed during the war as Himmler had ear marked it as his place of residence once Germany invaded and didn’t want it damaged.

He was also telling us only a few months ago how he once cycled from school to home for the weekend – a long trip - although I suspect the roads were a little smaller and quieter in those days. Lianne and I have visited Stamford a couple of times recently and dropped in at The George Hotel where his parents would take him for afternoon tea while visiting.

He joined the RAF towards the end of the war and was posted to India where he flew DC3s through the end of the war and partition. Like many in his generation he was always reticent to talk about that period in his life – we can only imagine that it was not all happy memories. He often mentioned that when he left the RAF he was approached by a small Australian airline that was looking for staff to expand their services. He often wondered what life would have looked like if he had taken the offer for the airline now known as QANTAS. He also acquired a taste for curries while in India which we often had for dinner when we were growing up - although very mild and served with marmalade which is not quite what we would expect today.

Flying in his later years was restricted to trips around the world with somebody else up front flying the plane. We remember him telling us how shocked he was the first time he went on a jet aircraft; being used to the slow take off associated with the DC3 the power and the speed of a jet engineer seemed almost magical.

He travelled extensively with our mother including many cruises - they both loved to visit new places although I always suspect our mother would have liked a little more lying by the pool at times and a little less driving around visiting “things”. In later years he continued to travel with his companion Cicely and came to New Zealand to visit us multiple times and forged long term friendships with my mother and father in law – Colin and Pauline. They also visited him in the UK and Colin still talks about the first time he went to the UK and was informed they were going on a hot air balloon flight over Woodborough – Colin didn’t like to admit he was afraid of heights and climbed aboard with a fixed grin of terror on his face for the whole trip.

No eulogy of Dad would be complete without talking about his love of cars. He had many cars over the years - I think he loved them all. His first car was a Sunbeam Talbot working his way up to his first 2 litre car - a Vauxhall Victor - in the 1960s and eventually Jaguars and Daimlers. I should note at this point that my brother Peter has total recall of all the early cars he had - including the license plate numbers!

My abiding memory is the day he brought home a brand new Jaguar XJS. I think it is still the fastest I have ever been in a car – I seem to remember going well over 120 mph on a very quiet M1 – although if there any police reading this my memory is probably faulty. In his later years he tended to have more mundane cars for day-to-day use but he kept various open top sport cars so the wind could blow through the little hair he had left.

He even had a motorbike in his younger years - and I should add at this point that none of us were ever allowed to even contemplate buying a motor bike – many reasons were given but I think it was only then that he realized how much he must have scared his own mother. He famously sold the bike to buy an engagement ring for our mother Margaret – luckily for him she said yes. They met at a dance through mutual friends and were married in 1951. She was his companion through life until her early death in 1989.

He was a successful businessman, joining and then becoming a partner in ISA which specialized in printed packaging tape. Something which is commonplace now but not so much in the 1970’s. I remember him endlessly having to explain to people what the company did and always coming back to the same line “we make sticky tape”.

They moved to Woodborough in 1986, building his dream house with my mother on a plot of land they both loved, especially for the “vista”. If you asked him what he wanted to be as he was growing up he would say an architect. He never became one but did design and construct his own home with my mother’s help. He had great attention to detail and insisted that the house be built with traditional floorboards rather than the more common sheet boards which seemed to perplex the builder.

He continued to live in the house until only a few weeks ago – refusing to consider leaving and only reluctantly accepting more and more help. To put it mildly, he was a proud and very stubborn man, which at times could be frustrating for us all. As my brothers tried to organize more help, we would find that as they headed for home he was on the phone canceling everything they had set up. But towards the end, he finally accepted that he needed help to stay at home, and we will forever be grateful to Lisa and the caring staff who allowed him to do so, with some dignity.

He was a socialite and loved the community of Woodborough. He was an active member for many years – including being on the village school board for a period. He could be found most lunchtimes in the Four Bells; latterly changed his allegiance to the Nags Head when Doris the landlady left and it became one of these “modern pubs”. My brothers and I continued to take him to the Nags Head until only a couple of months ago where he would more often than not have Scampi and Chips with his Whisky and Dry Ginger.

I’d like to close by saying thanks again to all of you for coming today. So many people when they reach their mid 90’s have outlived most of their friends and peers but I think the messages we have received and seeing you all today, reflects how our father was respected and liked by so many people. For myself, I remember him saying only a year ago how pleased and proud he was with all three of his sons, and how we were living our lives. I didn’t say it at the time but I can now that if that is the case it is largely due to the values that he installed in us.