always on the sidelines supporting me, whether I was playing football, rugby or cricket. And, even though he worked six days a week, outside and in all weathers, he still gave up his Sunday morning lie-in every single week to come and watch me play colts football, often running the line. As I progressed into seniors football, he became my number one fan, ever present on the touchline, totally invested in each game, shouting praise and encouragement to me in that familiar Scottish accent, and accent which never left him.
I’d like to think that some of his qualities as a parent have rubbed off on me in bringing up my own children – and not just our mutual intense dislike of painting and decorating.
This unfailing commitment to his family, and family life, never waivered, and extended seamlessly into his devotion to his grandchildren and then great-grandchildren, all of whom he absolutely adored. It also extended beyond the grave, with him still lovingly tending my mother’s burial plot eleven years after her death, cycling to Histon three times a week to place flowers and make sure that the headstone was as spotlessly clean as she would have wanted.
My brother James said to me recently that, to him, Jock’s home, felt like a sanctuary; a place of safety and comfort. When I thought about that, I realised that that’s exactly how Jock’s presence in my life for the last 54 years has felt for me; he was that place of safety. He was, for the three of us and our mother, a calm centre of our sometimes frantic and complicated lives. A rock. His was, truly, a life well lived.
So in conclusion then, I want to say; thank you Jock, for everything good you brought into our lives and for the many, many joyful memories you leave us with. You were the very best of men.
MARK BOYLE
06/03/2025
