OBITUARIES
At school , under the tutelage of Sefton Cottom , he was a leader in the choir and played piano , organ , trumpet , bouzouki , etc ( you name it ). He provided musical support for school shows and reviews , including the famous review we did entitled The Four Tin Bras , so named in honour of the great Shakespearean general Fortinbras ( opening dance number Can Can – performed by four of us wearing two Nescafé tins apiece on our chests , each bearing the label ‘ Can ’)!
Every evening , after prayers in School House , he would stick around and entertain the rest of us ( his fans ), jamming jazz on the piano and playing Greek hits on his bouzouki , which he electrified to great effect . Chris was our ‘ Music Man ’ educating the musically uneducated , some of us deemed tone deaf , to the joys of music . We thank him .
Not surprisingly , Chris won a music scholarship to Gonville and Caius College , Cambridge , where he was Choral Scholar . At Caius he continued to make music with huge enthusiasm ; organising and conducting choirs and orchestras of fellow students . Singing in the school choir , at joint rehearsals with Queen Margaret ’ s School for girls , he had met Bridget Procter , whom he later married in the early ‘ 70s when she played violin with the Royal Ballet Orchestra , before she went on tour , playing fiddle with famed rocker Jethro Tull .
It was in this period in London , as I recall , that Chris composed his first symphony . From his London period , opposite is a photographic portrait taken in the early ‘ 70s by a friend as a promo shot for his Piano Trio , The Hogarth Piano Trio . This is the quintessential Chris Johns .
During his time in London , perhaps remembering our old Ford shooting brake , Chris also loved to fix up old cars and spent many hours rattling around in or towing vintage jalopies which often sat out on the streets of London waiting to be fixed .
After his first marriage ended in divorce , Chris moved to Devon where he spent 33 happy years with Caroline Murphy . They and their daughter , Clara , lived happily in Totnes , Devon where Chris taught music and piano to the next generation of prodigies . Applying mechanical skills , he learned from his maternal grandfather who , as a professional carpenter , spent his spare time building things , including a magnificent treehouse and a Mirror dinghy . He also had a Canadian canoe . Both the dinghy and the canoe were named Clarabelle after the daughter he adored . On weekends he and his family would have boating parties on the river Dart with his many friends – messing about on the river !
On April 2 , Caroline and Clara orchestrated a programme of remembrance of Chris at historic Dartington Hall . Musician friends of Chris made beautiful music in his honour and memory , beginning with a recording of Chris singing solo at York Minster and ending with Clara singing Sleep by Peter Warlock – a wonderful father-daughter legacy .
Unable to attend , I composed the following ‘ Rhyming Remembrance ’ of Chris ( who , parenthetically , used to love swapping rhymes with me , about nothing in particular ):
The Great One
Christopher G . Johns Rang all of our gongs
This music Maestro Known as Big Piano
Schooled at Pocklington By Sefton Cotton
He played all the while With his impish smile
Our own gift from God Is gone - what a Sod !
But , waving his hand He still leads our band
Three cheers for our Chris We blow you a kiss
By olde pals you ’ re missed
( Tribute kindly submitted by Courtenay Ellis 54-63 )
Stephen Lane ( 56-65 ) Stephen was born and lived in Low Catton and was also a farmer for more than 30 years . As a school boy at Pocklington he enjoyed rugby and played for the school team . He is remembered in the Pocklington community as a long-serving councillor . Up until his death in February 2016 , he had been a Pocklington Provincial ward councillor for 9 years along with Claude Mole and Kay West . He had been a councillor for more than 30 years in the East Riding , as a parish councillor and a county councillor . He was a staunch member of the Conservative Party and took part in Party activities at both local and regional level . He was married to Jose and had two daughters and four grandchildren . He died in hospital after a long battle with cancer , aged 67 .
Patrick Edward Latham ( 37-44 ) Known to his friends as Paddy , he was diagnosed as having Alzheimer ’ s disease about six years ago but deteriorated rapidly during his last year . He had enjoyed a happy and active life . He was educated at Pocklington School and his school reports show that he was very good at everything including sport and music . His father insisted that he stopped having piano lessons when he was in the run up to ‘ school certificate ’ but he continued playing it for the rest of his life and had the ability to play by ear . Singing also played a large part in his life and he was a member of several choirs . In his final years , he directed the choir at All Saints Church in Brussels and conducted the NATO choir for 17 years . The programmes Paddy put together for the NATO choir concerts included songs and carols from the various member states – in their original languages .
After Pocklington , Paddy went up to Oxford to read Modern Languages , mainly French , and rowed for his college – then called St . Peter ’ s Hall . Having graduated he went into banking , his father ’ s profession , with Barclay ’ s Bank – first in London then in Paris and Oran . He returned to the UK to study Law at Liverpool University before working as a company solicitor and then into practice with a law firm in Great Yarmouth .
Paddy moved with his family to Brussels in 1971 where he was employed by the European Commission to revise the English translation of the Treaty of Rome , making sure that the correct legal terminology was used . With the British entry into the Common Market in 1973 he transferred to the harmonisation of law department mostly dealing with consumer credit and protection . He also lectured on Common Law at the Flemish University one lunchtime a week and gave a series of lectures every summer at a seminar organised by the Law School of the University of Georgia , Atlanta , USA .
After retirement he worked hard to get his golf handicap back to 9 , which he eventually managed . In 1992 he took part in an exchange programme at the Pittsburgh University Law School and also lectured at several universities down the East coast of the United States as far as Florida . This was followed by a semester as a Fulbright Scholar at Cornell University . In 1997 he and his wife spent two months on a lecture tour of the East coast of Australia from Adelaide to Melbourne and up as far as Brisbane and then over to New Zealand – both the North and the South Islands .
Back in Brussels he set about putting on concerts in aid of a variety of charities . He had a fine bass voice and often sang solo arias in oratorios as well as at his own concerts which in total raised over 35,000 euros .
He is survived by his wife Margaret , with whom he celebrated his golden wedding anniversary last year , and their two children , Mark and Catharine .
( Obituary kindly submitted )
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