Rest in peace | Page 2 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

To be honest, I wasn’t completely sure how well Funny Paper’s thread would work (no offense intended, FP) but was happy to try it out. I felt it might become a ghetto that few people visited, and on those grounds was already losing my faith in it. One thing had already struck me, there were several comments on my mention of the passing of author Iain Banks in the impossible to derail thread — though most professed not to have heard him, while posting about actor James Gandolfini’s death in the thread that was — an actor who was probably known by many more because of The Sopranos — was only commented on by FP.

I had worries that a thread for the dead celeb might not be visited that much. As Linde’s said, “…I’m more often in the impossible to derail thread than I hope to be in this thread. I just don’t see myself visiting different threads to read about who died this time, even though I’d like to know.”

For me, I like this thread being reserved for events that matter personally, so that when it’s used, those of us who use the forum a lot see it for it is — one of the members of our community having suffered a personal loss they wish to communicate their thoughts about. If those times are lost among reports of the “famous dead” then they may be lost as only certain people visit a thread that mainly reports celebrity deaths.

For these reasons — how FP’s idea didn’t seem to be taking off, and my thoughts on what this thread should be about — I shall go back to using the wide-ranging conversation of the impossible to derail thread to mention the deaths of those in the public eye that get my attention.

The great Irish poet Seamus Heaney passed away this morning aged 74 from a short illness.

A brilliant man, excellent writer and a national treasure not to mention his poem “Digging” saved my arse in my exams this summer! If you don’t know of his work, I encourage you to read it. He will be sorely missed!

Mid Term Break by Seamus Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o’clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying–
He had always taken funerals in his stride–
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were “sorry for my trouble,”
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o’clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Trud, just wanted to say, my thoughts are with you. I lost somebody who had been my closest friend since I was 17 in unexpected circumstances in February 2011. It is difficult, and dates attached to them remain difficult. I am glad you felt able to share with us, and the ways in which you are remembering Terry and holding her close are truly beautiful. My best wishes to you at this difficult time.