by Magnus Temple, Tristan Hughes and Tess Wicksteed, Read at London Funeral
I remember a number of years ago, at a time when birthday’s were still something to celebrate I had a birthday meal with perhaps a dozen, fifteen people. Anthony said to me ‘cor blimey – I’m not sure I could muster up as many friends’. Well Ant, (as I look around me today) I reckon you’re doing pretty well today and that’s not to mention the services already held in Nairobi and Addis – a sign of how many people from different world’s have been in touched and inspired by you.
It’s important to say that the following tribute is a joint effort, written together with Tess and Tristan. We shared two years of living together with Anthony at York University and many adventures since.
This may seem strange for those who first came across Ant in his post-hair, post-fashion incarnation, but when we first met him in York he appeared a rather glamorous figure – he had Paul Smith tops, a large room with a telly, a toastie machine, a credit card (without which I’m sure all of us would’ve starved that first term), and, perhaps even more importantly, a life that he’d already lived before arriving. (Anthony had spent a few years in Business and therefore had the priveliged status of a mature student).
He seemed worldly, and worldly-wise, in a way that the rest of us – more of less straight from school – weren’t. And yet worldly-wise with Ant never translated as world-weary – in fact quite the opposite. The experience of being at university, which perhaps the rest of us took slightly for granted, Anthony embraced with a passionate, wide-eyed enthusiasm – with a kind of infectious wonder. If Ant was going to argue about French and German philosophy until five in morning, he’d do so not to show or prove he was clever but simply because he wanted to understand it more. And that made it OK for us too.
Anthony made learning and education seem like a gift, a boon, an excitement (which I’m sure had a great deal to do with the influence of his mother, Jackie) and we owe him so much for that. Ant had such an extraordinary openness to things, a wish to see them honestly, as they really were – outside of any cant, hypocrisy, pretension, or worthiness that might surround them. It made him a terrific student and journalist, but it was also simply who he was.
The pattern that first brought Anthony to us – of bold and brave changes, of new directions taken and experiences embraced – was to be repeated over the whole time we knew him. Whether as a Fleet Street journalist, with a new life in Africa, as a husband and a father, he brought the same energy and passion to bear. Ant never did anything in half measures. If there was a wind to sail close to, he’d be hoisting up the sails.
It made life with him an adventure. Things happened when you were with Ant, you just never knew where you’d end up – and I’m sure we’ve all got our own anecdotes about the times we spent with him – for me too many memories to pick a single one – and besides which many wouldn’t be suitable to repeat in . But I remember vividly that feeling you got when you went out with Ant – that sense of excitement and slight trepidation, the knowledge that the next few hours (and maybe days) would be possibly dangerous, always thrilling, certainly different than your average Tuesday night out down the pub.
I cannot say how much I’ll miss Ant’s company: his sharp, mischievious, mocking wit, his often unsettling candour, his enormous, hilarious sense of fun, his unflinching loyalty to the people he loved, his self-deprecating generosity of spirit – if you were interested in something then Anthony would share that interest, if you were doing something he’d want to know about it – all the while keeping his own successes and achievements almost unmentioned.
After 17 years of knowing him, I can confidently say that one minute with Ant was the same as at least ten with anyone else. Ant years were like pet years – they were more compact, concentrated, and intensely lived than normal ones. So by my calculation the half a life he lived was the equivalent to many other whole ones.
But with Anthony in Africa, those times spent together were less frequent. Visiting him in Addis three years ago – I remember a wonderful couple of days driving out to hike down the crater of a volcano – relishing every minute of his company – knowing even then that time together was so precious. How much more precious it seems now.
And of course we didn’t have enough time. After all the other transformations we’d seen him go through we were still getting to know him in new ways, in new incarnations – inspiring journalist, loving husband and a doting, adoring father. We all wanted to see what else he’d become.
Anthony became a friend at a point in our lives when we were young and unformed and open enough for that friendship to not just influence us but to help us become who we are. The road we will not continue to take together is the greatest loss.
But memory has the power of preserving friendship – and as we grow older, Anthony will be with us, his passion, wit and love of life unforgotten and undiminished, with us always.
January 22, 2008 at 3:18 pm
what a shame, i’d very much like to have seen him again