In memory of Keith John Shrewsbury died December 6th 1983.

The years have run like rabbits Dad since you stepped through the veil. It's been 36 years and a generation has come and gone and as my generation begins to pass I reflect that I was 25 when we said farewell and I will be 62 in April. The binary certainties have passed too in those nearly 40 years Stalin, St Paul and the Berlin Wall have gone with all their certainties and binaries. The Fascists are back Dad these time in a post modern form. Did you despair Dad as you grew up through the 30s? AS you grew up in Uxbridge and saw and heard the V1s and the V2s as they dropped out of the sky Now, Dad it's the Bullingdon bullytgat lurks over Uxbridge. The "strong" men are back, Dad as pathetic as they were in your day. They are not called Mussolini or Franco now they are called Trump, Erdogan and Oban

Our ancestors Dad fleeing from Ferdinand and Isabella find the anti semitic accusations made perverse by Ephraim Mervis become a means to beat the left and a man with long anti racist record as they pervert the accusation to defend privilege. Once anti semeticism was used to describe those those who disliked Jews now it becomes a mechanism aimed at those who oppose Zionism and the policies of Nethanyanu. What would your gentle liberalism say Dad of these days?
You have given me so much Dad; a love of books, a respect for knowledge and a loathing of racism and ignorance. You travelled widely and opened yourself to all the variety of people and places. You walked many of the places now torn apart by war and destruction. What did you think as you sttod there in Sicily looking out across the African sea to North Africa and eastwards to Greece? I have stood where you stood but I wish so much I could have shared my thoughts with you. Thirty six long years Dad and you never saw your grandson Morgan..yet I sware I smelt your cigarettes the day he was born. I lost a faith but gained a faith and it's thanks to you.. When the old gods came for you that night long ago they made clear your rejection as mine of St Augustine and St Paul. I tell many of your near death experience some months before your passing when in a dream you met the gods of Greece in a hunting lodge deep in the Valley of Pan You gave me the appreciation of Julian the Apostate and like him I turned away from the grey world of the pale Galilean invented by Paul. There is a richer vibrant world you showed me Dad. I am eternally grateful. I only wish that you would have walked with me a little longer through the highways and byways of veil of the material world and that you had met Morgan Rhys.

I know Dad you would have laughed like me at the Turkey that is Nigel Farage. You stood up for diversity and difference and hated intolerance . It's time now Dad for me to go back to the world now. I often feel close on this day Its as if I stand on a liminal entrance between the grey world and the Summsrlands . I have an election to help win. You would have liked Corbyn. He like you loves Wilde and like you mentions his great work De Profundus

One day the door will open between the world's and I will not go back and we will laugh and talk of all of these things. Love you Dad .
Martyn