[Varley]

Perhaps not for the most straight laced of us but this true story from one of the participants this afternoon.

An elderly married gentleman died peacefully in his chair waiting for lunch after a visit to his club (a rare pleasure since the outbreak of C19).

His sister-in-law had had a sealed letter he had written kept safely for a number of years. It was to be opened in the event of his death.

The letter requested her to advise of his death by telephone to a number in Amsterdam. The recipient of the call turned out to be a lady with whom he had had a long occasional relationship.

On confiding this to his secretary (who he had shared with her late husband, his brother) she thoughtless exclaimed "You only had one letter?".

What single man could possibly want more of a story to have told at his funeral? My family (and this is not) would probably have gone ahead anyway.