Funeral Service sheet - back cover

DEAD FLOWERS BY REQUEST
So when I come to die
Throw no fresh flowers to me;
I have loved them in my life,
Bury them not that be. 

But take some old dead flowers
Whose fragrance has gone on,
That they and I may cross together
The unknown Rubicon.
                 G.C.R.C., 12th July, 1932   [We compied]

Some years ago I read in a paper an article which has remained in my mind ever since. It told the story of a journalist who was living and working in France. As he moved about his daily duties, he kept on hearing a name mentioned in connection with a time in the past when everything was wonderful and all the people had lived a perfect life. At first he had wondered if this was during the life of some early king such as Charlemagne, but the facts did not seem to fit in with any particular person. He wondered if the references were to some amalgamations of personalities from the past, but this also did not fit in. After a year or two he decided that he really must make an effort and find out who this person was who was remembered with such gratitude. Eventually he discovered that it was another name for the last English administrator in Aquitaine before that area of France was re-conquered and merged into the France of today.
 When I first read this story, I could not help wondering if sometime in the future the same thing might happen in what used to be Northern Rhodesia, and whether the English would also be remembered there with gratitude for the work we had done when we were serving in that country.  I dream of a day far in the future when a visitor from these Islands will go to the rural parts of that country and be told of someone remembered by his African name in whose time there was peace and plenty in the land.  He will be told of officials remembered for their honesty, their integrity, and their courage, who lived far from their own kind, and worked for the advancement and progress of the Africans.
 We shall not have been forgotten.
                                                    Gervas Clay, 1994.

[Footnote: Just before the Service we received from the current Director of the Livingstone Museum, an African, a message that reads in part – "For his contribution to the preservation of Zambia's cultural heritage he will always be remembered."   Gervas would have been so pleased.]

As you leave the Church there will be a voluntary collection for  the British Athletic Supporters' Club, which Gervas joined in 1929.

The family would be very pleased if you would join them after the service for tea at No.3 Elliscombe Park, Higher Holton.

Gervas’s family express their grateful thanks to
Rev. Ewen Pinsent lately of H.M.O.C.S., N. Rhodesia
for conducting the Service

Gervas’s family are grateful for the kind tributes they have received, which make their loss easier to bear. Almost everything in this Service was chosen by Gervas, in accordance with the motto, “Be prepared”.

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