Before I begin, I should explain the incongruous head gear. This one dad’s signature ‘bucket’ hats which accompanied him pretty much everywhere – holidays, pottering round the garden, shopping trips, bike rides - even hospital appointments. He was never a fan of solemnity and standing on ceremony - so I thought it appropriate to wear today in his honour. 
Telling the story of my dad’s early life is oddly easier than latter parts as over the years he frequently regaled us kids with numerous tales from his childhood and growing up in Kent. 
Many of these centred around the small Kentish hamlet of Basted and Mill Cottage (as it was then) where it was that dad arrived on 27th March 1938. Fittingly, Mill Cottage was also the birthplace of his father Arthur along with his father’s sisters and brothers.
However, his arrival at the ‘family seat’ wasn’t planned. Typically, dad had forgotten to let anyone know he was coming. Carter folklore has it that the trio of aunties – that mum Barbara had been visiting at the time - stayed up all night furiously knitting emergency baby clothes to swaddle the naked newcomer.
The next half a decade was a time of turmoil and upheaval as World War 2 raged but for Dad – who knew nothing else - it was just one big adventure. 
For the duration of the war he grew up in Bexley – in ‘Bomb Alley’, so called because it was on the direct route for enemy bombers on their way to London. 
I remember as a boy being captivated by his wartime stories – watching aerial dog fights, collecting shrapnel still hot to the touch from bombed out buildings, or hearing how a German fighter plane had swooped down to strafe the high-street with machine gun fire. 
Despite the backdrop of war, it was a somewhat idyllic childhood with a sense of freedom that has been lost to today’s generation. 
Holidays were spent visiting Basted where the doting aunties who’d once knitted his underwear - let him roam free to enjoy wild adventures in the Kent countryside, where he and friends ran amok armed with air guns, catapults and home-made bows and arrows (and the odd home-made explosive device) - getting up to tricks that would probably land you with a probation order today. 
His childhood experiences left a strong impression – hence all the stories, and in later life he retained an ability to tap into a childlike silliness and playful unfettered imagination when with us kids, and later his grandchildren, Holly, Alex and Dan. It was a special quality that we, and children who came into his orbit, were drawn to like a magnet. 
The high jinks continued while attending the London Choir School and St Michael’s College, in Bexley, but in between setting fire to unwitting Masters’ gowns and sabotaging blackboards to fall on unsuspecting Masters’ heads, Dad found time to establish two life-long loves – French and, of course, cricket. 
After finishing school with a clutch of O-levels including French of course, he headed to London where he’d landed a job as a humble ledger clerk for a big city trading firm. 
It was an experience that would leave an indelible mark on him. Years later he described the sense of inequality he felt – a working class lad – watching his fat cat employers scoffing silver plates of salmon and quaffing champagne at lunchtime. 
He fiercely believed in education as a great leveller and a potent tool in helping to dispel the social disparity he’d felt - and years later he was always ready to help support his children and grandchildren with our education in any way he could.
While he’d become disenchanted with City life his love of all things gallic had continued to grow with exploratory trips to France, including one notably ambitious early 60s road trip with younger brother Martin, where they traversed the 700 odd miles from North to South on a tiny Vespa scooter with a top speed of barely 30mph – while subsisting on bread, bananas, eggs and tomatoes… for six long weeks.
Spurred on by his French adventures – Dad embarked on what was to prove to be a hugely eventful and busy next chapter in his life. 
He became a graduate at St Mark and St John’s college, University of London to read English, History & French - having first taught himself and passed his entrance A-levels while still working his City job. 
Asked at his college interview where he’d studied, he replied: ‘mainly on the train into work.’
It was while studying at St Mark & St John’s that he was to meet Margaret Strong - a student from a neighbouring London college. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight – dad later recounted that mum was ‘a bit stuck up’ when they first dated. What he left out was the fact that he was already engaged – which may have had something to do with it. (I did say it had been a busy chapter in his life!)
However, the relationship flourished and was to last, of course, for the next 57 years. But so too did the close friendships he formed with some of his fellow scholars. I know this, of course, from the countless stories dad told countless times over the years about the things he got up to with the likes of Roger, Derek and Arthur. 
Dad threw himself into his studies with a characteristic trojan like zeal and determination – becoming - in the summer of ’64 - the holder of a first class degree and a qualified teacher. 
Just one month later, he and Margaret were married in Patcham, Sussex, followed by a honeymoon in Greece – part funded by money scraped together from the remains of Dad’s student grant. I not sure how long it lasted as at one stage they both ended kipping out under the stars on an upturned wardrobe by the side of a road. 
After getting hitched Dad headed for France - leaving mum behind to finish her studies - but this time he came not as a tourist but to live and work – teaching at the British Institute and teacher training at the Ecole Normale in Paris. 
Mum joined him a year later and they enjoyed a blissful 2yrs before yours truly arrived to break up the party in June ’67 – sending their lives in a dramatically different direction. 
Returning to the UK they set up the family home in Sonning Common, in Berkshire, while Dad was accepted for a teaching post at Bulmershe School, in nearby Reading. He certainly made an impression on the pupils who nicknamed him the ‘Terror of Bulmershe’, not sure why but Dad was always interested in the latest teaching methods so maybe this was some early experimental period! 
Joanna was born a few years later – completing the family unit. 
After Bulmershe - Dad returned to his almer mater as a lecturer in French before moving on after a few years to continue lecturing in 
French at Oxford Poly - now Oxford Brookes University where he remained until retiring in 2003. 
During this time the family moved to Long Hanborough, in Oxfordshire, before settling in Sutton Village a few miles away which remained home for the next 42 years. 
At the same time as teaching others, Dad was still furthering his own education, he completed a second degree in French Literature, once again securing a First before going on to complete two Masters Degrees – one in French and the other in Applied Linguistics. 
As if that wasn’t enough, he’d taken on a second job as Chief French A-level examiner and external examiner for various universities during much of this time. 
Along the way he somehow managed to find the time to write and have published a couple of French text books! 
So it’s not surprising then that an enduring memory of Dad is of him esconced in his study – books and papers strewn across every surface and him thumping away on his old typewriter – which reverberated all over the house - often accompanied by copious amounts of swearing. Dad was a scholar of Anglo Saxon as well as French. 
But his study door always stayed open and his favourite way to take a break from it all was spending time with his family – to which he applied the same energy and dedication as he did to his work. 
During his retirement he was able to commit more time his family and especially with his grandchildren - who he doted on. 
Dad had an uncanny ability to tap into children’s imaginations and would entertain his grandkids – first Holly, then later Alex and Dan, for hours with invented games, stories, and activities, and of course teaching them how to play his beloved cricket. 
In some ways I think he enjoyed the opportunity to re-live those halcyon days of his youth – running wild in the Kent countryside. 
My fondest memories of that time are the long summer holidays spent in Sutton, with the kids, especially when they were younger, following Dad around like the Pied Piper. Whenever Dad was around the house would be alive with boisterous commotion and much raucous laughter.
Hideaway dens, castles and pirate ships would be built - or at least imagined. Home-made catapults and bows and arrows would be crafted and sword fights, water fights and games of ‘Goorah’ would take over the house and garden.
Sadly, in the last 18-months of his life Dad was diagnosed with blood cancer which sapped his seemingly boundless reservoirs of energy - but thankfully not his spirit and his stubborn and stoic resolve to just keep going however hard it became. 
Dad saw all the family at Christmas and then again for one last glorious long summer – even managing to get out on his bike for what sadly turned out to be his last ever game of cricket.
Despite endless hospital visits and the debilitating effects of his illness, Dad refused to give in – and with typical stoicism dismissed his condition as merely a ‘fucking nuisance’. 
He gave as much as he could for as long as he could – which was his general approach to life. 
Despite crippling fatigue he ploughed on as he always had – in the last few days - churning through some dense tome about applied linguistics and keeping up with current affairs on his portable radio turned up so loud – you could hear it at the bottom of the garden. 
Dad died peacefully at home in Sutton, surrounded by his family. He was a gigantic presence in our lives and has left a gigantic Dad shaped hole which we will have to do our best to fill with the lifetime of amazing memories he left with us. 
Dad had a great way with words - but the immense love he had for mum, his family, and for his close friends didn’t need any. It was always just there – radiating out of him. And by simply recalling his smiling laughing face – I can still feel it now.