MEMORIES OF 92 YRS OF MY DAD

He was born in Woolwich to Gertrude and Bertie Weller, on the day before April Fools Day in the year (this I just cannot resist!) that our nation foolishly, along with the other European nations with their empires, embarked on what turned out to be a century of warfare - and, continuing into this.

Educated at Lindisfarne College, nr Southend on Sea from 9-18yrs.  He spent so much time doing sport that he had to go for extra tuition at a crammer in London.

However, his love of sport laid him in good stead for winning the Spurgeon's College tennis championship every year out of the four that he was there.  Anyway, he managed to come out of college as a qualified Baptist minister.  Such was the impact of his Christian ministry that on the very day that he preached his first sermon at his first church, World War part 2 broke out!  His contribution to the war effort was as a chaplain in the British army in Burma.

CHURCHES
Kingsbury Free Church 1939 to 1943
Burma as a chaplain to Her Majesty’s Forces 1943 to 1945
Kingsbury 1945 to 1949
Cinnamon Gardens Bap Ch 1949 to 1954
Cranbrook Rd Bap Ch 1955 to 1969
Shoreham by Sea 1969 to 1980 (age 66)
Interregnums in the USA at Racine, nr Chicago and a second church in the southern Bible belt 1980 to 1982
Back to the UK and interregnums at Bognor Regis Baptist Church (1982 to 1987), Merstham Baptist Church (1987 to 1990) and Portslade Baptist Church.

I think he told me that he was involved in building new extensions or new churches at every one of his churches.

Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, was more congenial for the whites in the 1950s thanks to our glorious British Empire.  Didn't we swim in Empire Pool, Colombo and the rock pool on the coast that was swept by waves?  I certainly remember that Grandma Gertrude and Grandpa Bert visited us once.  They swam in the sea and one huge wave engulfed Grandpa and washed his false teeth out to sea, to be seen no more.  He then had to go to some back street dentist in Colombo to get fixed up again.

On returning to the UK we entrusted much of our furniture to my uncle's ship the Empire Windrush in 1954.  I can remember an announcement over the public address system that the Windrush was on fire and my mum rushing below decks to get more information.  Two men in the engine room were killed but no-one else as the ship sank, along with our furniture.

At Ilford, two weeks of our summer holidays each year were spent at BMS summer schools.  I can remember Bexhill and, Cilgwn at Newcastle Emlyn in Wales.  My dad was great at entering into the spirit of summer school entertainments by performing in them.  For example, he once played the part of Cinders in the pantomime, Cinderella.  That version was called Cinderweller!  At one summer school at Boscombe, Dorset, in the 1950s, I can remember a few summer schoolers were most enterprising and imaginative with their antics at the sober Stonehenge monument.  I can remember that it was my dad who was blamed by the BMS for a handful of his charges making fun of the Druids.

In more recent years, he had the largeness of spirit to take on board new departures in Christian worship and has always moved with the times.  On retirement, after forty years full time in the Baptist ministry, he helped out Baptist churches in the USA and Surrey and Sussex.  He then came back to the church here in Shoreham where he was pastor and settled down to being a member in the pew after decades of being in the pulpit.  He visited the older members of the church in a pastoral role and, was called upon to preach, from time to time, until he reached his mid 80s.

My last really good memory of dad was on his last Sunday at the bungalow.  In the absence of Vera, we cooked Sunday lunch together in the kitchen with him cutting and peeling some vegetables and so overcooking them that he didn’t touch his when they got to the plate.  In fact, they weren’t that revolting – but then I eat anything!

The last thirteen months of his life were spent in three care homes in Shoreham and Worthing, after Vera spent some months in a nursing home before he joined her at Rosemary Mount care home.  He died at Cornelia Grange on 1 August.

So we come to bury Caesar - the longest living Weller ever - but also to praise him!

WIVES!
Married Mary Morella Mortimer in 1940.  Mother of my sister and I.  Died April, 1958 after a hysterectomy operation on the Monday; an aneurysm, I believe, was the cause of death on the Friday night.  I don’t think she was strong and well enough to have a major operation, like this.  But, perhaps, that was why she had to have the operation.
Married Marion Sainty in July 1959.  Died in the USA in 1981 after a stroke.
Married Vera Daisy Weller in 1982, who survives him.

My witty daughter, this week commented, thus:
Following the custom of remembering Henry VIII wives – divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived – my dad’s wives are died, died, survived!

Tim Weller 9 August 2006