I attended Stan’s (humanist) funeral yesterday, which was a very emotional affair with speeches and poems by Bobby Wellins, Michael Horovitz, Andy Cleyndert and Ben Tracey (and Clark Tracey, read by the humanist celebrant).

There was live music in the chapel: a solo piano piece by Steve Melling (“Ballad For Loos” from Stan’s last album The Flying Pig), and a trio (“Triple Celebration”) with Melling, Cleyndert and Nadim Teimoori. Also recordings of Stan playing “Starless and Bible Black” and “Little Man You’ve Had A Busy Day” (Mabel Wayne,1934)…as his body was committed.

There was a wake afterwards to which the family had generously extended a completely open invitation to allcomers, with a jam session that included Julian Joseph, John Critchinson, Nick Weldon, Gareth Williams, Tom Cawley, Andy Cleyndert, Simon Thorpe, Arnie Somogyi, Dave Green, Bryan Spring, James Joseph, Steve Brown and (the only horn player) Mark Armstrong.

In sadness.