Roy Noel Derbyshire, RIP. A sad month for the Derbyshires: my brother Noel died suddenly on March 8th from an aortic aneurysm, at his home in England. He was mentally and physically active to near the end — had been out shopping the day before he died.
Noel was fifteen years older than me. We saw too little of each other. After he joined the British army in 1947 we were never living in the same town, rarely even in the same country. We kept up with each other by mail, though, and relations were never anything but affectionate.
My brother was a hard worker, a good citizen, and a loving family man. He served his country in the armed forces for twenty-four years, and then his municipality for another twenty. He was married to Dorothy, who survives him, for over sixty-two years. The marriage was, so far as an outsider could tell, cloudless. They raised two fine sons.
Noel's was a good life, usefully and honorably lived. I shall cherish my memories of him.
Them he cannot take. We forget now, in this age of texting and Skype, how many letters people used to write. My mother got regular letters from her numerous siblings, living fifty or sixty miles away.
Noel kept this up to the end. I got two or three letters a year from him, the last one in December 2015. Reading one of Noel's letters was like having him in the room with you, talking.
I've met a lot of writers in my time, including a few famous ones. They fall into two broad groups. In Group One are those Dr Johnson and Arthur Koestler warned us about: those who, after you've been reading and admiring their stuff for years, are a sad disappointment in person.
Noel, though never a professional writer, was in Group Two: people with only one voice, who write just as they speak. That's a blessing. I have a big file of Noel's letters. To hear his voice, complete with soft Shropshire accent, I only have to dip into the file. William Johnson Cory's lovely lines come to mind:
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
A Trump supporter passes. Like all Derbyshires, my brother was politically opinionated. He loved his country and hated what British politicians of Read more >>
Many, many thanks to the readers and listeners who made a success of our latest fundraising drive. I kicked it off just a month ago, on February 29th, promising that when we reached our goal of $25,000, two things would happen:
