They sang no hymns and only the one anthem at Michael Foot’s funeral. Although there was music from the works of Verdi and Rossini, it was fittingly The Red Flag which marked the end of a simple but historic service in which seven eulogies captured the long life of a man in literature, politics, history, art, football and humour.
It was the humour that touched closest the deep affection for Michael among those inside and outside in the sunshine at the chapel in Golders Green Crematorium. The tone was set by the coffin itself, covered in red roses, but draped also in a large, woolly scarf in the green and black of Plymouth Argyle football club. Each of the speakers – including Gordon Brown, Neil Kinnock and CND vice-president Bruce Kent – had a characteristically funny story to tell of Michael.
Peter Jones, the former vice-chair of the club who used to accompany Michael to games, recalled an away match at Selhurst Park. Michael, then into his 90s, was asked by a steward if he had any offensive weapons on him, whereupon he whipped out an old copy of Milton’s poems, declaring that Milton was “one of the most important weapons in English history”.
As a Football Association registered player (number 90), his Argyle profile read: “Evergreen left-winger, unlikely to stray out of position”. To step-daughter Julie Hamilton he not only became a wise and wonderful man and a friend who enriched her life and education, but the first to teach her a “bad word” as he exclaimed “bugger” when knocking over one of his ubiquitous piles of books.
When former Tribune editor Mark Seddon got married, Michael lent him his cottage in Wales for the honeymoon, phoning “each morning bright and early to see what we were up to”.
Great-nephew Tom Foot, who lived in the Hampstead house in the last years, recalled the daily salute to breakfast was “always the very best egg in the world” – every day. And, towards the end, Michael in the sitting in the living room in the early hours, suddenly declaring: “I will go on protesting…”
Tribune is producing a special supplement in tribute to Michael Foot which will be available soon.
