Philip was a quiet, reserved person. He did not socialise or have friends, nor indeed was he close to his own family, but despite all that he was a member of the family, and he was accepted for who he was, without expectations that he should be different. Nowadays people would probably diagnose Philip as being autistic, but we must remember that is just a simplistic label, and does not describe the complexities of a real person, somebody that people here knew, and a description that some people would not recognise.
Philip was born on 6th July, 1926, the third of five children and the second of four sons.
He was always known as Philip, or Phil, and it was a surprise when we discovered last week after his death that his birth certificate gives his names as Edward Philip, but there is a curious rightness about this, for he was named after his maternal grandfather Ted Neild, a Cheshire nurseryman, himself the son of a professional gardener and a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society, and Philip early decided on a career as a farmer, and on leaving school, after an unhappy spell in 1940 on a YMCA farming training scheme in Yorkshire, he worked with the Garner brothers, Andrew and Arthur, market gardeners, where he served his apprenticeship in working the soil. It was this work on the land that gave him exemption from military service in the Second World War and afterwards.
Philip’s dream was to own and manage his own farm, and this was a dream that was supported by his parents, his sister Lyn, and later by his brother Ralph. Philip and Lyn saved hard, and their parents invested a large amount of money too, so that dream could become a reality, which it did in 1954. I can still remember everything being stacked up ready for the move in the big attic room at 16, Manley Road, the family home in Manchester. This story has been recounted by Lyn in a booklet which she wrote before her death twenty years ago, and you are welcome to take a copy after the service.
The years of establishing the farm were years of very hard work, Philip totally committed to this to the exclusion of all else. The farm was his life; the daily round and the seasonal round were what he lived for. He never stopped, he never took a break, he very rarely relaxed, though there were rare excursions in the early days to the seaside on a summer’s evening. Other excursions were to drive his parents to visit his brother Geoffrey. Philip reminds me of the hero of Primo Levi’s book ‘The Wrench’, published twenty-five years ago. Levi always felt that satisfying work was essential for a happy life, and the honest hands-on work of someone who also used his intellect was the highest form of work. Life is a series of problems which one has to use ones brains and one’s hands to resolve.
Phil loved his work, he took pride in the results of his labours, he did it well and with total commitment. With the support of his parents, brother and sister he made Mons Hall a success.
Philip did have a special friend in his life. The first special friend I remember was Laddie. Later there was Bobby. They were excellent working dogs, both trained by Phil, and with both of them he had a special relationship. He would spoil them with little titbits from his plate. Exceptionally, they were allowed into the farm kitchen, but only when he was there. Laddie and Bobby showed that Phil could connect and communicate, even if in those days relating to fellow human beings proved impossibly painful for him. He was a man of extremely few words, often spoken into a towel as he dried his face, or as he read the newspaper. He almost always ate alone; it was a familiar sight to see his breakfast or dinner keeping warm on top of the range, and his tea he ate too after others had left. He never objected though to the constant stream of visitors who stayed at Mons Hall, to our chatter and noise as children, to our attempts to help with milking, haymaking and harvest.
As time went by Lyn married and left, Ralph married and left, my grandfather died, and eventually my grandmother too died, leaving Phil alone at Mons Hall. The farm was sold up and Phil moved to Woodbine Cottage at Bugford in East Down, a remote and beautiful house with a fine garden on a sleep slope. I tried to visit him there twice when I was working in the area, but could not get a reply. At this time his niece Valerie began to make contact, visiting him, keeping in touch, and it was this that saved his life when she failed to get hold of him on the phone and he was found having collapsed and close to death. Although he recovered his health he never recovered his ability to walk, but he became very contented with his lot, and when on a couple of occasions I visited him, and also took my parents to visit him, it was remarkable to experience a new Phil who was chatty and friendly. His last years in fact proved happy enough for him. He had his television, his room and his privacy. Ralph and Mary visited frequently and helped look after his interests. Valerie stayed in contact and also visited. The staff at his nursing homes, Tyspane and Kenwith Castle, patiently made him comfortable and saw to his needs. His death, when it came, was what we all might wish for: after a good breakfast his death came suddenly and swiftly. In his quiet and individual way he touched our lives in different ways and he left his mark, on the land at Mons Hall, and on our lives.
