My earliest memories are of Nottingham and one such concerns a performance of ‘Peter and the Wolf’. Dick for some reason supplied them with the necessary goose feathers. (I know! I know! it was a duck; but you can't see duck feathers from the back of an auditorium can you? although I recollect the venue as more like a school or village hall.) This was the first performance I can recall to which I had access through Dick's work for the Arts Council which over the years gave us, as a family, many fantastic opportunities of see the best that was on offer, not just in the way of theatre, opera and ballet, but also to the many exhibitions promoted by the Arts Council.

There came a time, however, when Dick's enthusiasm for the job began to wane, largely because of the crass interference by politicians, endless fights over funding - one example I remember cited being that pickled gherkins or cucumbers receiving more subsidy than the proposed National Theatre - and the increasingly narrowly bureaucratic focus of the job. Having played a leading part in ridding the theatre of political interference with the abolition of censorship, and having steered the National Theatre to its eventual successful launch, the prospects ahead did not inspire interest or instil confidence that things would improve. The opportunity to take early retirement arose and in 1978 he took it, aged 60. In preparation for this Dick and Peg had already moved in 1974 from 102 King's Road, Windsor to 1 Church Close, East Hagbourne where they spent the rest of their days and both had their ashes scattered in St. Andrew's church yard.

There were two obituary notices for Dick printed in the national papers which fill in most of the blanks of his career with the Arts Council. Both used the photo at the head of the page, which everyone thought was taken at some grand ‘do’, but was in fact taken at the local village fête by a photographer from the local bladder. The silver goblet Dick is clutching in his right hand was awarded annually for the best show of roses - which on that occasion he was clutching in his left. First the obituary which appeared in The Independent on Friday 24 October 1997.

N.V. Linklater - Cutting Edge.

And this was the obituary that appeared in The Times

N. V. LINKLATER

Dick had and maintained till his dying day an astonishingly good memory not just for who played what in which production, where and when and directed by whom, but also books, their authors and contents. He was an avid and adventurous reader, including modern poetry, as well as being similarly stimulated by contemporary art for which again he had a discerning and appreciative eye. I would hazard a guess that he was keenest on British 20th century art and artists, Ben Nicholson, Moore, both Nashes, Hitchins, Spencer, Sutherland being among many he admired, but not without some reservations. When he became Head of the Drama Department at the Arts Council, one of his first acts was to have a picture in his office by Bacon replaced with one by Ben Nicholson, a thoroughly sensible choice. He also bought pictures in a modest way. Similarly he was a keen explorer of music of all types - although I never remember him playing any rubbish like country and western or for that matter any 'pop'. He was as partial to classical Indian music as he was to Indian food, which he was adept at cooking, having possibly inherited the skill from his mother.

A quirk possibly inherited from his father was an inability to whistle, which Dick was forbidden to do by Dum, the explanation being that because whistling is forbidden in the Royal Navy, where a man whistling was the signal for mutinies at Spithead and The Nore, so it was banned in the Linklater household. Apart from the fact that Dum was never in the Royal Navy, it is possible that Dum was himself prohibited from whistling by his father, James Stevens Linklater, whose livelihood centred around fishermen, and who was born and raised in Orkney, among whose fishermen whistling was one of many freets*, superstitions or taboos, against anything that might bring ill luck; freets included using certain words or subjects at sea e.g. hare, pig or salmon. Other things to be avoided were ministers and women in general, and in the case of the latter, especially those with flat feet, a squint, or any married woman believed to be barren! “To be on the safe side, really superstitious fishermen avoided women entirely on the way to sea.” [Miller: 1994] - which I suppose saved a lot of embarrassing questions about a woman's marital status and fecundity. Whistling was also freet lest it summoned the wind. *FREET is said to come from 'fruit', meaning the essence of something which could be stolen by witchcraft or sorcery, and came to be generalised to include any superstition.

My parents lived for some 18 years in Windsor in a house opposite what is known as The Long Walk. There are two railway stations in Windsor - the price exacted I believe by Queen Victoria for permitting the GWR to sully her pellucid environment. One, I think called ‘The Central’ goes to Paddington and requires a change at Slough; the other, (‘Riverside’?) about a quarter of a mile further on than the Central went to Waterloo without changes and was Dick's preferred commute to work. On some occasions, a trip to the theatre meant a trip up to London with Dick first thing in the morning. He almost invariably walked to the station; up the Long Walk and through the town past the Castle, a distance in excess of a mile I would say. He had it timed down to the last second. He would often wolf breakfast, as perforce would anyone else accompanying him to London have to, before the ‘walk’ to the station. Even when 18 years old, in the 1st [Rowing] VIII at school and in training for Henley, it still used to bring me out in a sweat! At a younger age, these mad dashes for the train were a real test of stamina; impossible to walk, and not quite a run - more of a commuter's lope.

A partial flash-back to his school days and the time spent in ‘remove’. For a number of years Dick was on the board of, I think, the Central School, along with Lawrence Olivier and other leading theatrical alumni. It was suggested that the Central School have an admissions policy requiring at least 5 ‘O’ levels - the then mid secondary school exams. There was a short silence before someone queried the wisdom of such a policy in the light of the fact that they, the assembled company, probably could not muster that many between the whole lot of them. Nor could they! Which may be one reason why Dick was so remarkably tolerant of my own and (I think I may safely say) my brother's less than scintillating school records. ‘Wayward’ I think would be the most flattering description of our careers. Tolerant and forbearing to a degree, but when required Dick could deliver discipline and I was on occasions beaten with a stick - richly deserved on every occasion, no doubt. Not just any old stick, but THE stick. After cataloguing the string of egregious misdemeanours under review, with the solemnity of a judge donning his black cap, I would be ordered, to “go and get the stick!” I knew which one from the collection in the hall stand was meant; a short, smooth, light-brown number, with a knob handle - not, fortunately, the longer, heavier, and more knobbly blackthorn item! But waste no sympathy; this was no merciless flogging, but the judicious and very occasional moderate application of bough to butt. While it did no good, it did no harm.

I am in two minds whether to leave the above paragraph in, as possibly tending to give an impression that Dick was anything other than a thoroughly reasonable, fair-minded, tolerant and liberal parent. I included it equally to avoid giving the impression that Dick was a push-over. He was not; you do not get to the top of any profession without a streak of intellectual rigour and determination.

He died after an unsuccessful heart operation. He had had slight problems for several years, none of which dented his enthusiasm for taking the dog for a walk twice a day come rain, shine, hail, wind or rough weather - albeit at a slower and slower pace so that in the end he no longer enjoyed company on these outings, feeling he was holding people up. Being uncomplaining and easy going it was only after considerable badgering from my mother that he finally consented to see the doctor when his chest pains kept him awake at night. He was ordered straight to hospital. When he said he'd just have to drive home to get his things he was ordered into an ambulance! The plan was to reinflate certain arteries (name of procedure.) In the event, come the operation it was decided that this would not suffice, so, at age 79 he was subjected to a triple by-pass. The arteries were very thin and fragile. Something came adrift and he haemorrhaged. He was opened up again and a better knot or whatever was tied but the blood supply to his brain had had a catastrophic interruption. From having retained a better memory than me right up to the time of the operation he seemed to be reduced to the condition of a severe stroke victim, incapable of articulation and seemingly very little aware of his surroundings. He survived for about another ten days, but never spoke again or really seemed aware before mercifully dying. He would have hated it and left instructions accordingly.

This was all pretty unexpected by me. I did not even know he was due to go into hospital and would not have known at all had it not been for a tip-off from my brother; Dick not wishing to ‘make a fuss’. I do not recall ever having a conversation with Dick of a when-I-die type, so when the blow fell I was in a quandary as to what he would have liked done. He was a regular attender at the local church, St Andrew's, which was only some 50 yards from their house as can be seen from the final ‘sunset’ photo which Dick must have taken from one of the upstairs windows. During the previous 22 years he must have walked through or past the churchyard twice a day or more with various dogs, or on his way to a service. As a keen painter and photographer he had done innumerable sketches and taken countless photographs of and around the church. Both my parents had long before ear-marked a plot in the cemetery; nice enough, but as in so many villages, no longer attached to the church but some distance away on the edge of the village. Wondering what to do for the best I was in the attic room in which Dick used to do his painting, and noticed on a chest of drawers, right by the door, a small pile of photographs. Top of the pile was this next photograph - so that is where his ashes were scattered in October 1997.

By way of sneaking a memorial into the old part of the churchyard without it being too obviously one, my brother and I undertook to install some new stone steps in place of what had been there before - a mish-mash of concrete slabs and bits of brick. This was accomplished in 1999. They are immediately to the left of the view in the above photo. They lead from the gate in the south eastern corner of the churchyard onto the fields and through which my father had passed so many times walking a dog. There are now two steps on a base of flags with two risers. On the face of the topmost is carved “In memory of Dick and Peggy Linklater” and on the bottom riser the first three words from the opening of ‘Samson Agonistes’, “A little onward...” - which contains a joke I feel Dick would have savoured - and the date “fecit MIM”. In years to come, people may wonder who the hell MIM was! Everyone who knew my father said what a nice, kind, generous, and cultured person he was. He was fair and open minded, with a keen sense of fun but also acutely aware of the plight of others and gave generously both to the local community and to society at large. A peer among fathers, he set an unattainably high standard for his immediate successors.