A Life Well Lived!
My Uncle Pat didn't last too long after his 100th birthday which came as no great surprise because his 'batteries' were pretty run down towards the end.
He is being laid to rest today following a service at St. Catherine’s Church in West Drayton (London) which I can't attend due to other commitments, but I plan to mark his passing in my own private way.
Pat never lost his sense of Scottishness even though the spent the rest of his life in England after the Second World War; he was a charming, hugely interesting and very generous person like so many of his generation.
I loved this pamphlet which was on display at Pat's 100th birthday party in March - A Soldier's Guide to Rome - having been issued to the allied troops who helped liberate Italy from the fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini.
A Life Well Lived! (22/03/16)
I was in London last week for a remarkable event - a celebration of the life and times of my Uncle Pat who turned 100 years of age on 18 March 2016.
Pat's family and friends in Scotland always knew him by his middle name (Patrick), but when he settled in England after the Second World War he became known by his first name, as John Fitzgibbon.
Here is Pat as a baby in his mother's arms alongside Edmund, his older tousled-haired brother in an family photograph from 1916.
Pat's war service took him to Africa where he fought with the Royal Signal Corps and on to Italy to dislodge a fascist Italian government which had allied itself with Nazi Germany.
And here is Pat's birthday cake in the shape in the shape of a St Andrew's Cross which was presented to him on the big day along with a card from the Her Majesty the Queen, signed Elizabeth R.
