Graham David Clark (20 Apr 1954 - 28 May 2017)

Graham Eulogy

I have many wonderful memories of time spent with Graham in our childhood and as teenagers and young adults.

Graham was a boy of many mishaps and accidents as a child - some of which were down to me.
When I was four years old, I managed to somehow drop a rock on his head - he just happened to be standing in the wrong place while I was throwing a rock up into the air.

On a beach holiday we dug a big hole in the sand. Graham jumped in, but there was broken glass at the bottom. Not entirely my fault but another trip to hospital.

On a different seaside holiday I dragged Graham back into the sea for just one last swim on a rather chilly day. Graham ended up with bad colic - a hospital visit again.

On a caravan holiday in Swanage, Graham stuck his head into a dustbin. It was full of wasps and Graham ended up with several stings on his neck. Not my fault that one but at least there was no trip to A&E.
Graham was a keen scout and kept a scouts sheath knife in a bedroom cupboard. One day he opened the cupboard, the knife fell out and took a chunk out of his thigh. Standing in the wrong place again Graham. Yet another visit to hospital.

As kids growing up together, we played lots of sport - cricket and football in the garden and on holidays throwing or kicking a ball around or playing French cricket on the beach. Even the odd game of golf and learning the game of golf with dad.

We played rugby for East Grinstead and Felbridge Juniors together and in one game me Mitch and Graham all played for the same team.

We loved watching sport as well as playing and spent many Saturdays watching Crystal Palace together with Dad- these were the days of Bobby Woodfruff at number 9 and John Jackson in goal, john Sewell, Peter Taylor and Steve Kember. This was in the 70’s and 80’s - a long time ago. I also remember a day at Lords with Graham, watching England play South Africa in a test match

Our School days were spent at - Halsford Park Primary
East Grinstead County Grammer
Imberhorne Comprehensive
We looked out for each other at school and I have many fond memories of those days.

We spent many years in the Cubs and Scouts - earning badges and going on scout camps together and competing in Scout Camping Competitions. I think Graham was in the Peewits or the Owls- I'm not sure which.

Music also played a huge part in our lives with - our love of rock and pop music, our first album, ‘Deep Purple in Rock’, we spent hours listening to on an old record player in our bedroom at home.

We went to many Concerts together : Wishbone Ash , ELO, 10CC, Geordie, AC/DC, The Who, The Stranglers, Genesis, Thin Lizzy, Queen, and more recently, Within Temptation and Delain at Wembley Arena. No wonder that My hearing is so bad now!

Our many family Holidays were spent in places such as - Cornwall, Scilly Isles, Rimini , Majorca, Norfolk Broads and many more hold so many great memories of what we used to get up to on holiday - including holiday romances and games of pub cricket on long car journeys.

We enjoyed a love of Beer- and were together at the birth of CAMRA , there were many beer festivals that we went to in and around Sussex and Our Favourite beers were ales such as Harvey's and Breakspears-with many a pint enjoyed down at the Old Mill in East Grinstead.
I have memories of Grahams Eighteenth birthday spent at the pub in Cowden drinking beer and playing bar billiards. We'd had quite a few. We came home - walking through the front door, straight out the back door and threw up over Mums rose bed. What a great night that was!

Despite all these mishaps and injuries Graham was always strong minded, ambitious, fun loving, adventurous, supportive and had a heart of gold. A great brother and a fabulous friend. He was so brave and positive throughout his illness and was truly inspiring to all who knew him.

So please raise a glass - to Graham.

Graham arrived in my life like a whirlwind. We met at the RR Parents Assoc and I immediately appreciated his willingness to pitch in, get the job done and laugh whenever possible. And what a great laugh.

One day he offered to run a Murder Mystery evening as a fundraiser. He had done these before, had a script and just needed some volunteers. It sounded fun and afterwards I discreetly let him know I'd acted years ago and would be willing to give it a go.

My one concern then was whether the rehearsals would clash with Palace matches, as I'm a season ticket holder. 'Not if I can help it', he replied, 'because I'm Palace too!' As you can imagine, the play was soon forgotten as we launched into chats about our team (there's always plenty to discuss about Palace!) and our friendship took off from then on.

Rehearsals were hilarious, with a great bunch of volunteers/actors. This later developed into the RR Players, which was more challenging for all but well within his ability. One particular memory of Graham that I love was us setting up the school Christmas fair whilst holding a conversation entirely made up of lines from the plays that we'd been in together. I thought we'd run out of quotes after a few minutes, but we kept it going for ages and were aching with laughter as we remembered lines that became increasingly inappropriate when repeated out of their original context. I doubt I could have held such a conversation with anybody else.

It also became clear to me early in our friendship how much he loved his daughter, Laura, and wanted to support her education and ambitions. He spoke with enthusiasm about her studies and her university plans. He was quick to support her best interests, and I remember him receiving a pompously negative letter from school once, that he was drafting a robust reply to. We enjoyed exchanging phrases he could use, although I'm sure his final version had the most diplomatic versions!

He liked to hear about the progress of his friends' children too and was great with our son James. He shared the fun when James was a Palace mascot and cast him in one of his plays when he was 10, (see the attached photo of their curtain call together). It was a fun and valuable experience for him, and encouraged a love of performing that James continues to enjoy years later. We will always credit Graham with helping to spark that enthusiasm in James, and boosting his confidence that he could do it.

As other priorities took me away from the plays, our friendship continued due to Palace. I'd introduced him to my husband, Peter, and his memories of their exploits whilst on 'Clarkies tours' to away matches are repeated by him below. I loved that the guys were together, having a good laugh and looking after each other (to a certain extent!). There was the odd occasion when I feared they might miss the last train home, but somehow they managed it.

I feel so sad that as Graham was approaching retirement, he has been robbed of many more years and opportunities to enjoy these trips. I'm sure he would have organised and encouraged us all on many, many more...and probably to increasingly far flung venues.

Graham...I will miss your pearls of wisdom and sayings ('you've got to eat a big breakfast so the beer has something to land on'), your advice, exchanging texts about Palace, your friendship, your enthusiasm and, ofcourse, your wonderful laugh.

When Mark and I came up with the loopy idea of performing a Crystals cheerleading routine at Graham's stag do, we just knew that he'd love it. I doubt the other girls and I would have done this for anyone else, and we knew he'd join in (with pom poms and tu-tu). And it was a pleasure to do something for him for a change.

My abiding memory of that night is Graham laughing, laughing and then laughing even more.

I first met Graham through my family’s involvement with the Royal Russell players. It was clear then that he possessed such extraordinary energy, dynamism & enthusiasm allied to strong organisational skills.
We enjoyed so many several social occasions with him, a particular highlight was seeing Dave Glimour at the Albert Hall last November.
As our friendship grew, and through our mutual love for Crystal Palace, he introduced me to the disparate members of the ‘Clarkey’s tours’ group and I began to join them for some of their away day adventures.
Trips to Stoke, Burnley, Aston Villa, Ipswich, Liverpool, Dover et al ensued, always organised by Graham and invariably involving ludicrously early starts and catching early bird morning trains out of London. It’s one thing being at Euston by 7am but quite another getting there from far flung corners of Surrey on a Sunday morning. I learnt the local night bus timetable due to Graham, catching the 5.20am bus to East Croydon along with people who hadn’t even gone to bed yet !
Arrival at the town/city of destination was normally achieved by mid morning but Graham’s organising didn’t end there. We would then frequent various ‘approved’ hostelries as we inched our way towards the local stadium, generally arriving just in time for kick off. Return journeys generally involved drinking the town dry before making tension-filled connecting deadlines for the trains home.
Of course, things didn’t always go to plan. For instance, at Dover we didn’t take into account the mile long (very) uphill walk from pub to ‘stadium’ and then afterwards frequenting a quite extraordinary dreadful pub, populated by men in string vests, dogs on a rope, beer out of a can and a barmaid with no teeth. Andy was out of the door before we were served !
At Burnley, Graham hadn’t accounted for Neil’s propensity for 9% proof cider in the local micro-brewery or his inappropriate footwear for walking up snow-lined roads to the station (we caught the last train our of town with 1 minute to spare). Graham’s planning was subject to much derision (and was actually very good) but the craic was taken in good spirit and, at times he must have felt like he was herding cats !

One particularly memorable trip was to Liverpool, on this occasion with just Graham and Ian. An overnight trip was arranged as we set off at ‘early’ o’clock (so early that the tube wasn’t open at London Bridge thus requiring a route march walk to Bank station). Several hours later, we’d visited 3 pubs, toured Lverpool city centre and witnessed a startling 2-1 away win at Anfield in quite torrential rain. We were in the front row and there’s a terrific picture of us celebrating in front of the players. That night the 3 of us walked to Albert Docks, ate well and celebrated the win. In the morning, we did the ‘Beatles magical bus tour’ and visited the Cavern. Happy times.
However it was the rail journeys that were most memorable. Ian’s deadpan delivery of his remarkable domestic arrangements with regard to bubble wrapping his windows and his ‘errant’ door bell arrangement that can, for instance, play the tune to ‘Yellow rose of Texas’ when a neighbour triggers a car fob, had us in stitches. Graham and I interrogated Ian on these matters over several hours and each new revelation exceeded the one before. By the end of the journey we had tears rolling down our faces and several fellow carriage travellers remarked and thanked us for the most entertaining journey of their lives ! Graham and I often reflected back to that weekend with fondness. As I recently trawled through a year’s text message exchanges with him, ‘bubble wrap’ features regularly !
And a big well done all for the MND campaign work. Reaching well over £10k was a fine achievement and it doesn’t stop there. I happily took a pie to the face from Julian Speroni at the pie slap launch and lots of credit to Graham, Mitch and the walkers for the trek to Stamford Bridge in April. A fine cause.

Thank you Graham for all the fun, kindness & enthusiasms. As I write this, I can hear your infectious laugh. That’s the way I will remember you.

TRIBUTE POEM For GRAHAM by MARY his Sister read at the Reception
Our Mother Marguerita often wrote poems and I seem to have inherited the ability to do this as well. I wrote one for both our parents Funerals and Graham asked if I would be doing one again for him when the time came and of course I said YES! so here it is ;

MOST OF YOU WILL KNOW GRAHAM WAS GREAT AT GIVING SPEECHES, SO IF HE WAS HERE TO TALK TO YOU ALL TODAY, WHAT WOULD HE SAY?

"Dear Lesley, Laura, Stuart, Mitchell, Mary and friends, Please don't cry,
Still love me but don't grieve for me, it's easy if you try!"

Don't think of all that I won't see, don't think of the last 18 months of illness for me,
Think not of the places and events I won't go, INSTEAD I want you all to think of what I HAVE achieved and remember HOW our lives and friendships did FLOW.

I've lived, I've loved (married twice!), I've laughed, I've cried,
I've raised a beautiful child who is kind and wise.
I've worked hard (well some may say differently!) but I have worked hard that's for sure,
I've done my best, I am Satisfied, I couldn't ask for more.

I know NOT what becomes of me, Nor what is beyond today,
But rest assured I am in paradise, sharing my time with others that have gone before me, I have NOT gone away.

When alive I spent my time in good company, enjoying everything that made me happy, and it was a joy to be with you all,
I shall remember the good times we shared and all the friendships I was so lucky to have had,
So when you sit and tell your stories, I'll be with you and help you to recall.

I was the majority of the time very happy but some of you will know that I had HAD enough,
So I ask you - ALL the memories you have of me, share them with each other with smiles and laughter
a drink in your hand and be BOLD and TOUGH!

'Cos let me tell you, YOU have ALL loved me and enriched my life, so although I lost this battle with MND, I ask that you raise your glasses be it Beer, Wine or a G & T!
AND I'll say CHEERS to you and you say CHEERS to ME!"

To GRAHAM XXXX

I first met Graham in the Victory club, our favourite watering hole before and after Palace games and it wasn't long before we became friends bonding over our love of supporting and following the red and blue army.
It was Graham that got me and the rest of the Palace faithful, Andy, Ian and John to join him in away games, dragging us off all over the country at some ungodly hour in the morning just so he could get the cheapest train tickets available.
He was a great organiser and loved nothing better than to arrange an away outing for the lads which became known as 'Clarkie's Tours' which is now legendary. It was like a military exercise ran with precision and execution but something always went wrong and I can still hear Andy saying 'not another Clarkie cock up!' to which Graham would always make some feeble excuse. He loved the banter and the leg pulling and especially a good craic with the lads.
Thank you, Graham, for lots of happy memories, especially those away trips. 'Lovely' (Welsh accent)

I cannot remember the first time meeting Graham, but it was his infectious laugh that I recall the most. He always had time to stop for a chat and a catch up. Graham was always jovial and always had a warm smile. You shall be missed Graham... Rest in peace xxx

I had seen Graham around helping at Royal Russell events. However it was when I got 'roped in' to Royal Russell Players that I got to know him better. I had great difficulty learning and remembering my lines. Graham as Director of the show was so encouraging and ever patient as I made so many gaffs. I only had a little part in that first show but he made it seem like something so amazing. It was a joy working on each show with him and the team.

I was not always able to attend the after rehearsal pint that Graham so loved but when I did, Graham was always there as the life and soul of the party, laughing and joking. That was Graham - always smiling, always encouraging, always fun.

I had the pleasure of meeting Graham when I mentioned to Sue, my mother in law, that I would be up for directing a play for the Royal Russell Players a few years back.

We had a chat over a pint (as always seemed to be the way with Graham) and I mentioned a play that I loved; it had all manor of crazy ideas, characters and themes...many people would have baulked, but Graham's grin just grew bigger and bigger as I described how I thought we could make 'The Wonderful World Of Discoccia" work with a small cast and tight budget. It took a while to convince the whole drama group that the play could be done (and my goodness, it was an amazing production) but had it not been for Graham's steel, encouragement, and down right enthusiasm, I do not think the play would have ever got past the first rehearsal.

And that's all I ever knew of Graham - always wanting to try new things, always up for a challenge, and always greeting problems and pitfalls with a smile and optimism and energy. I relished our rehearsal evenings - almost as much as the mandatory post play pint he insisted upon. Along with the myriad of other things - Lesley, family, sport, travel, politics...he did love his ale...

A truly remarkable man, and we shall all miss him very, very much.

I have known you for many many years, and I thank you for the support you gave me...RIP Graham, you were one of the good guys

I first met Graham when, in 2010, I thought it would be a good idea to get involved with the drama group for parents that Royal Russell School was proposing. The first production, of what became the Royal Russell Players, was The Golden Pathway Annual. Graham took on one of the lead roles as George and showed us all how it was done! Thank goodness for his experience. We had to split his stage wife Enid, across three separate actors as no-one was brave enough to take it on the whole thing. I've added a picture of Graham with the ladies.

It was only with his enthusiasm and encouragement that I agreed to co-direct the next production, with him in the driving seat. I don’t know how he found the time to do all the things that he did and with such drive and enthusiasm. One planning meeting, having heard his schedule for the week I mentioned that he was like the Duracell Bunny, well something like that anyway! He did more in a week than most people do in a month, not to mention keeping the Croydon Pub trade going. He truly kept me on track when I was despairing that nothing would work out and truly taught me so much.

Graham has been so much of our lives for the last seven years, we’ve certainly had a lot of fun. His was also the only stag do that I’ve attended, albeit uninvited, when I joined Mandy, Heather, Helen and Georgia to entertain him with our alternative Crystals cheerleading dance. Graham dancing with pom-poms is an image not quickly forgotten.

I am honoured to have been able to share some of Graham’s thespian adventures and to have made a good friend. He will be sorely missed and my heart goes out to Lesley, Laura and his family.

I first met Graham through work at Croydon Council. We soon became good friends through our love of Crystal Palace, cricket and real ale. Indeed it was Graham who got me into attending Palace away games and will be fondly remembered by my travelling colleagues for organising the whole trip (Clarkie Tours as it became well known as), including obtaining match and rail tickets and sorting out a decent pub near the ground.
He was always keen to ensure we arrived at our destination in good time to enjoy a few beers (and a large brandy) before setting off to the match. This normally involved getting the first train out of London on a Saturday morning. I will always remember arriving in Hull so early on a cold damp day that the only place that was open was the Maritime museum. Some how we still managed to miss the kick off!
I can only admire Graham for his courageous effort and determination to carry on enjoying life to the full after being sadly diagnosed with MND. He was a true and reliable friend and I will miss him badly.

We were introduced to Graham through DSUK Bromley Ski Group, we arrived as tired, worn -out parents towing two reluctant young boys. Lucky Graham was paired up with the most reluctant of the two, with a prompt from his friend Lynn we left Graham to it, suddenly the boots did fit, and the end of the world was postponed. We have read the moving tributes to Graham, describing him as a man full of humour, positivity and enjoying himself with friends at the bar. For those who did not see him in action at the disability snow group, he was an extremely kind, patient, tolerant, calm, loyal, committed, generous man who made a bigger difference to the lives of our family and families like us than he could ever have known, we will always be indebted to Graham and will miss him very much.