
Obituary for Major Alan Spearing TD
Alan died peacefully on 19 October 2016 at Dial House Nursing Home, Bedford, aged 73.
A loving husband to Jenny and a proud father to Christopher, he latterly served with B (Bedford) Company, 6 (V) Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment and as the Battalion Intelligence Officer, concluding his service as the B Company Commander and then a period with Bedfordshire Army Cadet Force.
Alan’s Celebration of Life on 8 November 2016 at Bedford crematorium was conducted with dignity and style by Civil Celebrant Beverley Meaney MICF. The entrance music was the theme ‘Now We Are Free’ from the film ‘Gladiator’. The music for reflection was ‘On Days Like These’ from the soundtrack of ‘The Italian Job’.
Christopher read ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling and the closing music was ‘Layla’ by Eric Clapton.
The venue was filled to overflowing with standing room only.
Afterwards, at The Bedford Blues Rugby Club, many who had served with Alan in the Regiment met for the first time in over 20 years. Many Royal Anglian ties were evident but especially the infamous 6 Royal Anglian tie designed by the former OC of B (Brutal) Company, The Late Maj Ron James TD!
Years ago we were at Bodney Camp on a 6 R Anglian TA weekend and, whilst dining, the soup was served.
No one, except the perpetrator, the CO, Lt Col David James, was prepared for when Lt Alan Spearing dipped his spoon into the soup.
Up came a pair of Captain’s epaulettes to mark his promotion!
Alan’s lifelong work of caring for others, now via the Cambridge Brain Bank for medical research, will continue.
Alan was a fine colleague, a true officer and Gentleman. We will not see his like again.
‘Comradeship is the essence of the military. It is an unparalleled unique brotherhood which does not exist in civilian life.’
The following are memories of Alan from Jenny and Chris, read by Beverley…
Alan was born in Edgware General Hospital in 1943. The Blitz had started in London, and his mother and aunty complained that it was Hitler’s fault that he was such a poor sleeper. As they were both working in a munitions factory, they could take it in turns to look after him, so it worked well. Alan’s father was in the National Fire Service, based at Lords cricket ground. That was a wartime role where life expectancy was only shorter for airmen serving in the RAF.
Alan’s diet was supplemented by fruit from a local greengrocer called George Cohen, who later went on to found Tesco; this was Alan’s first claim to fame!
Before the end of the war, Alan moved down to Eastbourne, into the lap of his mother’s family, on the edge of the beautiful South Downs. They had a smallholding with chickens so Alan could have an egg each day, when the ration for everyone else was ONE egg per week. One day, when playing outside, after feeding the chickens, Alan experienced the unfortunate incident of falling into the cesspit round the back of the cottage.
Jenny and Chris say that they don’t think his sense of smell ever recovered!
School years were a happy time for Alan. When he was good, he was treated to Notorriani’s best Italian ice-cream, down near the pier – and the love of ice-cream stayed with him all his life. It won’t surprise you to know that Alan got up to all kinds of pranks in his youth, a pastime which stayed with him throughout his life.
One of his teachers was a bully, and all the boys disliked him. He used to pick on Alan in particular. But Alan got his revenge by disconnecting the brakes on the man’s bike, so that he lost control going down one of Eastbourne’s steepest hills – apparently, he wasn’t badly hurt. Then there was the row of beach huts in Pevensey that went down like a domino rally when Alan was out behaving badly with other boys. The incident made it into the local paper and his father commented on ‘such mindless vandalism! Of course, Alan never owned up.
When Alan left Eastbourne Grammar School, he was keen to pursue a full-time career in the army and joined the Parachute Regiment. After his basic training and jumping out of a lot of planes, the army thought that Alan’s talents would be better used by returning to academia.
He did his teacher-training at a college in Chichester, played scrum-half in the college rugby team and enjoyed watching rugby games all his life.
After an Eric Clapton gig at the college, Eric had no money and was glad to sleep on the floor of Alan’s room in the halls of residence; his second claim to fame.
It’s true to say that Alan probably survived on his mother’s fruit cake for most of the time he was a student. He loved fruit cake and when Jenny baked the Christmas cake well in advance, she would store it in a tin in a cool place. Unfortunately, Alan often found it, broke off chunks and then blamed the dogs.
Those of you who knew Alan from his teaching career will recall that his subjects were English, History and Geography. As a keen reader, Alan filled the family home with endless books. He was there in the days before Wikipedia. You could ask him anything as he had a mind full of information and Alan would patiently explain the answers in great detail.
Alan rose to deputy-head quite early in his teaching career and seemed to have no desire to move up to Headteacher. Those of you who worked alongside Alan will recall how he had difficulty in remembering all the children’s names, so to get around this he would just call them all ‘sunshine’.
As deputy-head, Alan had to take morning assembly on many occasions. He didn’t often use The Bible for reading material. It was usually ‘Winnie the Pooh’ – which can provide some very good lessons in life. He didn’t just read the stories though – he did all the voices. Tigger had a lovely Bengali accent, Eeyore sounded very miserable and Kanga had a strong Aussie accent. Best of all, he did an authentic rural Sussex accent for Winnie the Pooh – after all, he had grown up very near to the 100-acre wood. From the messages we’ve received, it sounds like many of the teachers have fond memories of these assemblies, not just the pupils. Chris got the benefit of the characters when his Dad read a bedtime story.
Some of Alan’s favourite interests were outside school. He joined the Army Cadets then the Territorial Army. He became Major Spearing, officer commanding ‘B’ Company of the 6th Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment, at Kempston Barracks, and, later, the Regimental Intelligence Officer based in Bury St Edmunds.
Chris remembers his dad going away to camp for 2 weeks each summer, particularly to Gibraltar.
Alan was a proud supporter of the Gurkhas, the British Legion and the Army Benevolent Fund. He used to help in the garden at St John’s Hospice too. Alan and Jenny spent a memorable day when they were invited to a Buckingham Palace Garden Party in 2002 because of his services to charity.
Continuing with the army theme, you may remember that Alan loved ‘Dad’s Army’ and was a big fan for many years, so it is ironic that he died in the same week as Jimmy Perry, one of the writers. Certain episodes threw him into a state of uncontrollable laughter – particularly the one where Sergeant Wilson notices that Captain Mainwaring is attempting to look younger by wearing a toupee.
Jenny and Alan met when she ran a pharmacy in Orchard Street, Kempston. Jenny remembers the day Alan walked in with painful muscles and she recommended Elliman’s Universal Embrocation, a liniment that may be familiar to the older ones amongst us. It is also used on horses! Jenny found out Alan was a member of Bedford Squash Club and said she was interested in learning to play. And the rest, as they say, is history.
On their wedding day Alan and Jenny even had a guard of honour of squash rackets, when they married at Bedford Registry office in 1974. Jenny said the marriage only lasted 42 years because he had such patience. Jenny’s Mum would agree and said that Alan had the ‘patience of Job, and he certainly did.
Alan, I understand, had a partner in crime at the squash club (you know who you are). They used to draw up the fixture-list for the league tables and always had an odd number of players. I am assured that there was no funny business, but they had to invent a character they named Rupert Agincourt-Snurter to make up the numbers!
They were both known for their on-court distractions too – Alan would shout ‘Shoelaces’ in the middle of a rally, or when his partner was about to play a shot. It was usually after the other chap had tapped on the door with his racket, just as Alan was about to play a shot, pretending there was someone waiting to come on court.
As a family, they always had rescue dogs and enjoyed walking. Christopher must have grown up thinking dogs were the next best thing to brothers and sisters. Alan enjoyed other outdoor pursuits like fly fishing and clay-shooting. He would often take on a new fad, and get all the kit, so Jenny and Chris teased him about ‘all the gear and no idea’.
In their forties Alan and Jenny took up skiing, and Jenny helped Alan with a ski-club at school. Alan would drive the school mini-bus, and leading up to the trip, Alan, Jenny and the students would go over to use the dry ski slope at Bassingbourn Barracks. It was good preparation for the school ski-trip, but as Jenny says, she thinks most of the pupils liked the stop at the chip shop in Sandy on the way back.
Even on the ski-trips, during a 24-hour coach journey to Austria or Switzerland, Mr Spearing had to tell a Winnie the Pooh story before lights-out.
When they made Alan retire from the TA (no-one noticed it was way past the statutory age of 55), he became more involved with Freemasonry, where his interest in history came into its own. He joined various orders of chivalry and was kept very busy doing talks on historical medicine – with some input from Jenny as a pharmacist. Together they joined the local Scots Society because Alan’s adopted father had apparently come from Scots roots, and he was interested in Scottish history. Alan and Jenny found a few Highland flings were a good way to keep fit. Chris maintains that as a stereotypical Scot, Dad was bound to be careful with his money.
Like all families, they have apocryphal tales, none more amusing than when all three were sitting on the sofa watching ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’. As Jenny said, they had dogs, and Alan had just come in from the garden just at the scene in the film where Tom steps into a cow-pat. Chris and Jenny were suddenly aware that they were ahead of modern technology – as they had Smellyvision! Yes, that’s right. Guess what Alan had on his slipper?
In latter years, even with all his difficulties, Alan maintained his sense of humour. Jenny and Chris could usually squeeze a smile out of him and it is their hope that you will all remember him like that.
Jenny and Christopher Spearing & JLR