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Frank’s memorial

11th May 2007 by Helena 1 Comment  

FrankI have just come back from my friend Frank’s memorial service. It was the first memorial service I have ever been to, but I suppose from now on they will be as frequent as 21st birthday parties were twenty years ago.

It was a moving and actually quite uplifting event. David Cameron (or Dishy Dave as I prefer to call him) read one of Frank’s most brilliant columns from The Times in 1983. His friend Stephen Glover spoke movingly and amusingly about him and almost cried when he told us there are countless times he forgets he’s gone and almost picks up the phone to discuss some political event or other with him.

The church of St Clements in the Strand was packed. Rupert remarked that he doesn’t think he actually knows as many people as were gathered there today to remember the great man.

Not surprisingly, as Frank was a political sketch writer, there were lots of politicians: Norman Lamont, Norman Tebbit, David Owen. Mainly tories of course, as Frank was more to the right than left. Our friend Jonathan remarked that the right-hand side of the church was more popular than the left.

A singer called Sir Willard White sang Prince Gremin’s aria from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. His voice was remarkable; it filled every corner of the church, quite one of the most unforgettable arias I have ever heard live. Frank loved opera and I wished he could have heard it.

The first hymn we sang had a line in it we repeated several times that said: Endless is the vict’ry thou o’er death has won. I know you’re meant to try to be all pragmatic when faced with death and pretend the people are still around but they’re not. And the victory would have been if he’d beaten the cancer and lived on.

Meanwhile there is still no news on Maddy. Today someone offered a £1 million reward for news leading to her safe return. I really hope this makes a difference. The latest news is that her poor mother is ill. I’m not surprised. I feel ill and I didn’t even know her.

Sorry to be focused on death and despair. I hope there will be good news on Maddy soon and my black mood will lift. Of course Frank would not have wanted anyone to be sad today. He had an amazing capacity to laugh at almost anything. And through all the years of his illness he never once complained or showed any self-pity. An example to us all. So I shall stop moping around and get on with writing something more amusing.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Life, blog --> Tagged With: frank, memorial

One thought on Frank's memorial

  • aminah says:
    12th May 2007 at 8:27 pm

    this post brought tears to my eyes…

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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