John Carter: In Memoriam


Margaret has asked me to say a few words about John on this sad occasion and I shall limit them to talking of him as a colleague and a burgeoning friend. The loss to Margaret, to Joanna and Jonathan and to his grandchildren does not need to be mentioned by me.

John was a colleague at the Brookes University, a key member of the French Department with special responsibility for the literature of the 18thCentury as well as language teaching, a special interest of his. He came to us in 1973, then the Poly, and quickly established himself as a popular efficient and cheerful colleague, kind and thoughtful and with the ability to see the bright side. He shared a room with a close friend of mine, Brian Parkinson and on my visits to see ‘Parkie’ we always shared a joke and often more, as I could pick his brains on French 17thC. literature. We had both studied Marivaux’s ‘One ne badine pas avec l’amour’ for A level and he was interested to hear that in Paris I had seen La Double Inconstance.Voltaire and Rousseau too were key figures. and one story about Voltaire is worth recalling and certainly amused John...When Voltaire was dying, in his eighties, a priest in attendance called upon him to renounce the devil. Voltaire considered his advice, but decided not to follow it. “This is no time,” he said, “to be making new enemies”. and in view of his positive and cheerful nature I mention this because, as far as I could see, John had absolutely no ‘enemies’and was not likely to have any.


In retirement John kept in touch with many colleagues and friends – and was a key member of the occasional lunchtime gatherings at what we called the “Manuel” club where laughter, memories and good humour flowed. Our mutual friend Brian Parkinson became more or less housebound two or three years back and John and I, together with another old friend of Brian’s, John Prangley, used to try and visit him every fortnight or so and take him out for a beer and some lunch. Very often his son Oliver, here today would join us. Very sadly Brian died in February of this year, but by then John to me had become more than a cheerful positive and friendly colleague, a real friend, and with ‘lock down’ he became a vital weekly telephone contact as, in fifty minutes calls, we would discuss mutual interests the breadth of his which coincided with mine. 


John at school, as a cricketer, was a fast bowler (I am sure his Jonathan and grandchildren discovered this in family action) but in life he was an ‘all rounder’... with so many interests.. the English nove: Dickens and Austen and now the discovery of a particular favourite of mine Evelyn Waugh.. ‘Brideshead Revisited’ reinforced by viewing various episodes of the excellent 1982 TV series on You Tube.. then onto ‘Scoop’, ‘Decline and Fall’... There was his love of Turner and the hope that we might visit the new exhibition at the Tate., and see, if only in reproduction the painting ‘Slave Ship’ his depiction of the ‘Zong’ where 135 slaves were tipped into the sea and whose owners mad a claim for insurance on lost cargo ..rejected by Lord Mansfield (which took us back to Jane Austen) His love of French literature was always there and one of my hopes was to introduce him to Goethe’s novel ‘Werther’ and make the comparison with Rousseau’s ‘La Nouvelle Heloise’ which I was just starting to read. Voltaire of course would always be with us.. ‘Candide’ with the shooting of Admiral Byng ‘pour encourager les autres” he agreed with me, we should remind the Admiralty of that piece of naval history, considering their present 41 admirals (more in number that the fighting vessels they command) But probably most important of all for John were the last words of the novel ‘Nous devons cultiver notre jardin’.. we must cultivate our gardens... his pride in his ‘earlies’, his early potatoes and in his tomatoes was genuine, although I have the feeling that this year there may have been an overabundance of the latter.


John never moaned about his illness indeed never mentioned it but remained witty, wise and kind. As Jean Jacques Rousseau expressed it: ‘What wisdom can you find greater than kindness?’


I mentioned Goethe and I hope you will forgive me if, as a ‘Germanist’ I end with some words from him: ‘Ein unnutz Leben ist ein fruher Tod’ ‘A useless life is an early death.’ and John’s life was certainly not useless and was lived to the full.. we shall all miss him dreadfully. The short verse I shall end with as an R.I.P. for John was scrawled on the wall of a hut on the Gickelhahn in 1780, moving the old poet to tears when, six months before he died in 1832, he saw it again. It has been beautifully set by Schubert as a song, but here is the English version. 


Über allen Gipfeln it Ruh


O'er all the hilltops
Is quiet now,
In all the treetops
Hearest thou
Scarcely a breath;
The birds are asleep in the trees:
Wait,
soon like these
Thou too shalt rest.