Obituaries are a chance to tell remarkable stories

They give us a perspective on prominent careers, and also allow us to hear about interesting, lesser-known achievements, says Stephen Manning

Jones (left) and Innes: gone, not forgotten, still quoted in the Indy office (Getty)

Last week the great Terry Jones shuffled off and became no more, joined the choir invisible, met his maker and so on – as his erstwhile comedy partners might have it – and The Independent gave him a fitting send-off, in the form of an obituary by the venerable Anthony Hayward, a specialist in TV and entertainment who has written for us about many stars of the stage and screen.

Jones – like his peer and sometime collaborator the recently departed Neil Innes – was a prominent figure and an obvious choice for an Indy obituary (not to mention a chance for hacks of a certain vintage to recite “Crunchy Frog” or other Jones-performed Pythonalia, or test their surprisingly unrusty Rutles knowledge).

The obituary page, which falls under my purview, is a chance to take stock of a life, and not always the most familiar ones. It is a useful opportunity to learn about somebody remarkable, like the adventurer Barbara Hillary, the first black woman to reach both North and South Pole, the latter achievement shortly before her 80th birthday. Very much of the “because it was there” school of human endeavour, Hillary saw no good reason why a Harlem-raised woman who twice survived cancer shouldn’t spend her dotage visiting the extremes of the planet.

Nor are they eulogies, for often the more interesting lives come with… complications. Few would deny the primacy of Roger Scruton in modern philosophy, yet many of us (Independent readers, at any rate) would struggle to digest the man’s views on matters of multiculturalism, feminism and so on.

A similar story, perhaps, for the botanist David Bellamy, someone for whom the overused epithet larger-than-life might actually be appropriate. I recall the man – let’s not forget, a household name botanist! – was a climate-crisis denier. But who knew (I did not) that he had a minor chart hit (No 81) in 1980 with “Brontosaurus Will You Wait For Me?”. Perhaps I’m just in denial.

We can’t cover everyone, of course, and if we missed out your favourite rear-admiral, then other news sites are available. But we hope that the lives and stories we do cover are interesting and lively testaments to the human spirit. And also some cricketers.

Yours,

Stephen Manning

Chief sub-editor (and obituaries editor)