David French (29 Mar 1957 - 29 Mar 2020)

In loving memory of David French who sadly passed away on 29th March 2020
Memories of David
David was born on the family farm, the youngest of 4 siblings. He went to Finchingfield primary school and Braintree high school. He remembered coming off the school bus and going into roselands to see his grandparents. His grandmother always giving him a mug of rather stewed tea as it was made at lunch time and left on the rayburn to keep warm for him. When his grandmother was not watching it was emptied down the sink.
David after high school went to writtle agricultural collage. His year out being on a farm in kent which was both arable and dairy, he enjoyed working with the dairy cattle.
David then joined the family farm with his father ron, brother peter, Jack and chris. He helped with looking after and breeding of the pigs and arable work. Ploughing, drying the crops when needed, running the corn back to the farm at harvest and all the other jobs farmers have to do.
After his parents died, he left the running of the farm to his brother and went to work at Stansted airport with Swissport. He worked his way up and his last job was as a trainer. He was asked and went to cyprus to train new workers and always spoke of the enormous baguettes he could buy for lunch for 1 euro.
David’s company were extremely pleased with the way he communicated with personal in Cyprus and asked him to go to japan to train staff, he declined as mandy was unable to go with him being the sole carer for her mother and working full time.
David enjoyed music and went to many concerts. He attended the Wethersfield young musician concerts in the church, it was here that he first heard jess Gillham whose music was played at the beginning of the service.
He together with mandy went to see many musicians at saffron hall including people like Courtney pine, taking both mandy and Jeanne (mother in law) to the shorter coffee concerts. He went to the opera with friends and to the apex at bury st Edmunds when he discovered tord gustavesen whose music he really enjoyed, going back to see him when he come over touring. The music which is to be played during the reflection is by tord. The Thaxted festival was also a favourite, listening to bands such as Ronnie scotts jazz orchestra.
David also enjoyed dinning out with his many friends and family, trying many new venues and revisiting old.
David loved exploring different countries and trying different food. He visited Greece, Cyprus, Crete, Zimbabwe Thailand, south Africa (seeing the wild animals, wine tasting at Stellenbosch), Portugal, enjoying port tasting at various lodges. His last holiday being in Italy which including several walking tours, and enjoying the buffet breakfasts and large dinners in the hotel.
The holiday which amazed him most was when they visited Tours in France, going to villandry with its many formal gardens which could be seen from terraces. He was highly delighted when looking at one formal garden to discover that the lovely colours come not from flowers but many different vegetables and herbs. A picture of this is included at the back of the order of service.
Although he loved roses and liked pretty flowers he was not interested in growing them, time should be spent on growing things to eat.
David enjoyed his gardening, growing many different vegetables. He liked having the time after retiring to keep everything neat and weed free. David entered the horticultural shows and on occasions won classes for his veg and wine, he also enjoyed attending the quiz night.
David loved his animals and was often found helping mandy with her horses at home. He drove her to shows and enjoyed chatting up and helping lady riders when mandy was competing, but always told her about those encounters. Even helping on one occasion to catch a loose horse.
He loved dogs and in recent years had rescue dogs from Danaher, supporting the charity with donations and prizes for the dog show on their open days.
After retiring David decided he needed a new hobby and took up bell ringing.
He was always amazed at Roy and cherry’s patience when teaching. Both David and mandy enjoyed the bell ringers outings. David also took an interest in bell towers when on holiday in England and was horrified to learn that buckfast abbey in spite of having many bells did not have its own bell ringers having to rely on bell ringers from other parishes. He was so pleased when shalford at long last had enough residents to ring their own bells.
He was a wonderful son in law, visiting Jeanne each week and welcoming her to roselands for Christmas, easter, bank holidays and days out for visiting places or just having a meal. Jeanne always enjoyed seeing him and the lovely comments she got about him.
David was one of life’s gentleman. He was a kind, caring, gentle person with a deep faith. There have been many wonderful comments such as: -
“one of the friendliest kindest and most approachable person I have had the pleasure to know and work with, you will be greatly missed”.
“a terrific and friendly guy”
“you were one in a million”
“truly a gent-loss of a good man”
“he was such a lovely human being, always smiling, always ready to help.

David will be greatly missed by all who knew him. He will always be much loved and remembered with affection by mandy, Richard, chwee, peter, janet, his extended family and all the friends he had.
He was mandys rock and was in the words of a well-known song
Simply the best