ADDRESS AT FUNERAL
OF CYRIL AUSTIN

24 SEPTEMBER 2012

I have known Cyril for 32 years, exactly one third of his 96 year life.

Some here have known him much longer and I ask their forgiveness if I get things wrong, and I can certainly only touch on part of the life of a man held in regard, respect and affection by all who knew him.

Cyril was, to quote the hymn, rooted, grafted and built in Hertford.  He started life in 1916 in Bengeo, and then at 14 joined the GPO, as it then was, for a lifetime career.  He began as a telegram boy, delivering telegrams on a motor bike.   This also began his long involvement with the internal combustion engine.  He was driving a car before you needed to pass a test and he was still driving his car earlier this year.

Before the war, he was in the Territorial Army and was therefore mobilised on Day One of the Second World War, serving in the local regiment the Beds and Herts, achieving the rank of Regimental Sergeant Major. After some time training, much of it in Northumberland, he was off to places that were hotter in climate and action. He was in Gibraltar, then North Africa, and then in the long and hard struggle up the Italian peninsula.  His chief acquaintance with the area of Florence was not as a tourist admiring the paintings in the Uffizi Gallery but in a sharp exchange of fire with a German battery.  The man on one side of him was killed outright, the man on the other side was unscathed and Cyril took a nasty wound in the leg.  You can listen to him on a tape at the Hertford Museum, retelling this incident in a very matter of fact way.  He recovered enough to return to action later in the campaign.

In 1940 he and Dorothy were married here at St Andrews.  It was, when you think about it,a remarkable expression of confidence and commitment. In 1940, the war was not going well. And as a sharp reminder of this, Dorothy was late at the church because of an air raid warning.   They could not know whether Cyril would survive,  or what kind of England they and their family would be living in. If it was a gamble, it was a very successful one.  It was a long and close marriage – a more than diamond marriage.  They were blessed with a son, Ray,  and in time grandchildren and great grand children.

After the war, Cyril came back to Hertford and back to the GPO, becoming a strict, fair and respected manager of the Sorting Office. Two, maybe more, are here who worked under his watchful eye.

He and Dorothy were regular worshippers here, at the 8 o’clock service every other week without fail, sitting about four pews back on the south side. And later Cyril was part of the Calton Court congregation.

Cyril was active in all sorts of local activities

• Royal British Legion and the regimental association,whose standards are here
• bowls, for the Old Comrades, then McMullens then Bengeo
• -he was regular supporter of Hertford Town Football Club, on the touchline in the role of critical friend –sometimes very critical.
• He was a keen gardener and, as well as his garden, kept a large allotment.

That was how I first met him because my allotment was next to his. There was the kind of combined cooperation and rivalry you get on allotments I eventually managed to grow Brussels sprouts as good as his but I never got within a mile of equalling his shallots.

When the many steps to their house in West Street at last became too much for them, they moved to a bungalow at Calton Court which suited them very well except it did not have enough garden for Cyril.  Dorothy died soon after their move. Cyril was not one to show his emotions -his upper lip was a stiff as any – but he made it very clear how terribly he missed her.

For many years on Remembrance Sunday, it was Cyril who recited at the War Memorial the famous lines by Laurence Binyon ending “We will remember them”.

Well now, Cyril, we say “We will remember you”. God Bless.

Bill Church