funeral

Today was held the funeral of one Alun "Archie" Roberts, originally from Grangetown in Cardiff.

The service was packed with family and cycling friends. It was a joy to hear old and true stories of him then, and later in his local pub in Llandaff North in Cardiff. It warmed the heart to have a vicar also from Grangetown with the real Cardiff voice too!

It had been organised by his best friend, also originally from Grangetown. I'd first met him when he went to Southampton University in 1963 and came out on a local cycling club clubrun! I'd just started doing clubruns on my bike, with my father on his (instead of on a tandem).
Archie I met in 1972 when I moved to Cardiff and joined the Byways Road Cycling Club.

Some friends come and go, some you only see occasionally. Archie was the latter, but we always talked as if there had never been any time since the previous time we talked.

It good to catch up with others too, as living twenty miles from most of them I don't see much of them atall. His best friend lives up in Yorkshire, the furthest travelled at the funeral, and the one I've seen most of, popping up in different places over Britain, usually with a bike!!

I managed the funeral well, despite being squashed into a corner. I found listening to the poem by Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle...." very hard indeed.