Ceremony
May the Force be with you.
We are here to celebrate the life of David Sheppard – a powerful presence within the Force. David always put down his religion as ‘Jedi’ on his census returns – and so this ceremony will honour his Jedi beliefs.
David was a brave warrior, but wars do not make one great – David’s greatest battle was with the enemy within, a fight he won every day, until it was time for him to return to the Source. In the words of Grand Master Yoda, “Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not.” This is not a place of mourning – this is a place of celebration. Here we will build a little of his memory. This is the first stage of honouring the man, and we will celebrate the life that will let us find ourselves if we are tempted by sorrow to consider the dark side. To be a Jedi is to face the truth, to be a candle, not the night. (Lights candle).
The Force is never in one place at one time. So for the first of the family tributes, I would like to invite Louise to speak the words that she has written for this time.
Louise’s Tribute
David has ceased to be, he is bereft of life, his is not pining for the Fjords and it was definitely more than a scratch.
Like the parrot in Monty Python he has snuffed it, kicked the bucket. David has gone to the great mosh pit in the sky.
He would be well chuffed that I managed to shoehorn that in.
David was 42 the Sunday before his operation and we went out to celebrate, David had a steak and we ate birthday cake and I managed to find a minute to tell him how proud I was of him for his bravery in the face of such adversity.
We feared this outcome a little but we didn’t expect it.
The worst has come to pass though and David is forever 42.
In Hitch Hikers guide to the galaxy (much loved by David) the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.
This is now unreservedly true.
David means beloved and he was so so loved.
You are all here today because of love.
So yes the answer to life the universe and everything is 42 because it signifies David and that means love.
I will miss you forever. So long and thanks for all the fish.
Thank you, Louise.
And now, please stand. Before the curtains close and we look no more on these magnificent boots, please let your true feelings out.
DO NOT CLOSE CURTAINS AT THIS POINT
A life like David’s deserves more than a minute of applause, but a minute will have to do. This is not a funeral. Please clap and cheer, sing if you want. Feel the Force and let it flow through you. Punch it!
(One minute’s mayhem)
Please sit.
Eulogy
A Jedi does the hard things, because they can. David – Dave or Shep to his friends – did the hard things every day. Just getting up was sometimes a victory. David “picked himself up, dusted himself down and carried on”.
You could say he had two lives. One out in the town, where he was a regular sight in more than one boozer, and the other with his family, addicted to the ‘Great British Bake-Off’ and yelling at the telly when he knew the answers to the questions on ‘Bridge of Lies’.
It seemed you couldn’t go anywhere in Birmingham without bumping into someone who knew him. He was very well known in town. He’d been a cellarman at the Actress and Bishop, the Distillery and the Button Factory. He sorted the beers at the Moseley Folk Festival and latterly was a linen porter at the Hotel Divan. Even when he was forced to give up his beloved beer about 18 months ago, he still went out with his friends to pub and club. Once, after a Pink Floyd tribute band concert at the Symphony, David took his mom and dad into a local pub, and sure enough, in just a few minutes he was holding court at the bar with a few of his mates.
You could hardly miss him. His ‘serial killer chic’ look with long Matrix-style leather coat and New Rock boots was pretty distinctive, and he had the attitude to go with it. He might have looked a bit intimidating, but its’s clear from all the messages from friends that he was a really genuine guy who would go the extra mile to help anyone if he could. He knew his stuff. He was a member of a regular quiz team and if anyone asked anything about science fiction, particularly Star Wars, Star Trek or Dr Who he was right there. He loved books – his favourite was Catch-22. He also loved ‘Ready Player One, he and Louise went to see it at a 4d cinema and he hated the film just as much as he hated being jostled about on the chair and sprayed in the face with water though. Louise never took him to a 4d film again but stuck with theatre shows after that.
One of his FaceBook friends posted this tribute on his feed:
“I first met him about ten years ago when I started working in the JQ and started going to the Actress (and Bishop) to do the quiz. I noticed there was a guy sat in the corner who seemed quite happy just to sit there and flip the bird to anyone and everyone who walked past. I found out a few weeks later that he was a glass collector on a weekend. I remember asking him why he didn’t serve and his reply was “the people that come in here on the weekend are absolute arseholes, I’d rather just serve the regulars”…he made me feel welcome in his own wonderful way, and making me a part of the regular’s group he set me on the path to where I am now. As I came to realise, he was anything but a ‘grumpy guy with a mohawk’ he was a shining light who deserved the very best and all the rest in life. He may be gone, but he will never be forgotten, certainly not by me and all who knew him at the Actress. All hail King Shep”.
Another friend tells a story about finding himself on a little pub crawl with Dave. They went from the Actress to Subside, then on to Snobs and back to Subside. While at Snobs, the friend lost sight of David, and found him outside consoling a young girl who had lost her friends and was crying her eyes out. She showed Dave a photo of her friends, and he went back into the club and didn’t come out again until he had found her party and reunited the girl with her mates. As another friend said, he was adored dearly, profoundly. A man with the heart of a King who lit up the room whenever he was in it, a man who found merry absurdity in nothing.
For every light that there is in the universe there is a dark side. The dark side in David took the form of the ‘Monster’. It was something he lived with, without knowing it, probably all his life. It was an acoustic neuroma – a brain tumour. The Jedi teach that it is not possible for a universe to contain great good without also the possibility of great evil. The Force is perfectly balanced, so when you look in to the dark side, the dark side looks back at you. David looked it right in the face, and was not afraid.
Even to the end, David was optimistic. He talked about the cool scars – his favourite movie was Hellraiser, after all – and the pint he would have when he could start drinking again. He did impossible things before breakfast.
The Monster may have contributed to some of the difficulties that he had in conventional life, but without it, David would not have been David. He never had huge troubles, but whenever he did, mum Kitty, dad Gordon and sister Louise and her husband Richard would be there to be a safety net. Louise and Cousin Tom formed the LTD Club and were inseparable as children, going to shows and gigs which nurtured David’s love of music. They wrote books together, had joyful times, went travelling to Venice, Malta, Bridlington and the Lake District. David and Tom were in a band together for a while, which increased his love for loud music. It was metal music he blamed when he went deaf in his left ear last November. The doctors sent him for an MRI scan and that’s the first time he met the Monster in person. Hiding in his brain stem, it was bigger than a golf ball, and growing slowly, every day. The surgeons and the staff were simply amazing. I’m not going into the details as that kind of sadness has no place here, but I can tell you that because of David’s strength, the family found that on Gordon’s birthday, David renewed his organ donor card. Though it took every ounce of their strength too, David’s organs were successfully transplanted; his liver saved the life of a woman in her 50s who had been on the list for over five years. His kidneys went to two men in their thiries and forties. His heart, so big and so generous, was unable to be used because the specialist team from Glasgow was unable to get to Birmingham in time, even though they kept Birmingham International Airport open after hours just in case the flight came in. His heart is now tissue, and each valve has the potential to save the life of a child born with heart defects. It gives the family great comfort to know that it will remain in Birmingham.
It would have been a privilege to know David as you all did. One who knew him best was his cousin Tom, and I’d like to invite him to deliver his own tribute to David.
Tom’s Tribute
When Kitty, Gordon and Louise asked me to do a reading for David, I felt truly honoured, but then how do you begin to write about your 42-year old cousin at his funeral? It’s unimaginable.
I thought I’d start by telling you about one of my earliest and fondest memories of our childhood. Picture us as young boys ploughing through a cataplana (fish stew) munching on every kind of fish going. All whilst standing on chairs to reach a pot that was as big as us both. Holidays meant everything to me having Louise and David to share amazing experiences with – you see they’re my cousins but much closer like true siblings.
Not sure if everyone knows but David had a modelling career as a teenager. He was my model during my early hairdressing competitions when I was just starting out as a barber. His nickname was ‘Rocky’ because someone thought he resembled Sylvester Stallone. We were a great partnership and we won every competition we entered for a couple of years.
He had an amazing head of hair and sat for hours with me while I practiced. He would even tolerate a bit of makeup to look more dapper. Great fun and loads of laughs!
It wasn’t just the hairdressing which brought us together. David and I were in a band with Leighton and Paul who are both here today. We played the circuit around Brum with Dave on keyboards and even managed to get kicked off stage once for our controversial lyrical content. Probably our proudest and most rock star moment! Music was a big part of my, David’s and Louise’s lives thanks to Uncle Gordon, who did a brilliant job of making sure we were brought up listening to the right music. Queen, Pink Floyd, Prince and many more.
To sum up words for David, I want to read you a line or two from a Pink Floyd song called ‘Time’. There were many that I could have chosen but these words seem to be the most fitting.
Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say
To David, my cousin, my brother and my friend
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.
Committal
That is the Way.
In the words of Grandmaster Yoda
A Jedi’s strongest ally is the Force. Home, this ally is. This energy surrounds us, it binds us, luminous beings are we, and not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you, through you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, even between you and the inanimate world. It is still there, between you and David.
But twilight comes upon all of us, and night must fall that the sun can rise again. Now will he rest. So now we say goodbye to David’s body, knowing that his life energy can never be destroyed. It has returned to the Force, to be reshaped into future memories. We will remember David every day; in heavy metal and horror movies, in quiz nights, pints and the insider jokes that will never mean anything to anyone else. As long as we keep David, or Dave, or Shep’s memory alive, he becomes more powerful than ever. As long as his memory survives he is not truly dead.
The Force calls to you, as it has called to David. Do not look to the Dark Side – David would have wanted you to look upon his life with love, and put aside grief, anger and despair. Look on the bright side of life. If you feel like singing along, go for it.
Cue: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
CURTAINS CLOSE with more applause and cheering
For David, for Dave, for Shep.
May the Force be with you.
If you wish to make a donation in David’s name to the Donor Family Network or the George Collier Memorial Fund there’s a box by the exit door.
May the Force be with you.
We are here to celebrate the life of David Sheppard – a powerful presence within the Force. David always put down his religion as ‘Jedi’ on his census returns – and so this ceremony will honour his Jedi beliefs.
David was a brave warrior, but wars do not make one great – David’s greatest battle was with the enemy within, a fight he won every day, until it was time for him to return to the Source. In the words of Grand Master Yoda, “Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not.” This is not a place of mourning – this is a place of celebration. Here we will build a little of his memory. This is the first stage of honouring the man, and we will celebrate the life that will let us find ourselves if we are tempted by sorrow to consider the dark side. To be a Jedi is to face the truth, to be a candle, not the night. (Lights candle).
The Force is never in one place at one time. So for the first of the family tributes, I would like to invite Louise to speak the words that she has written for this time.
Louise’s Tribute
David has ceased to be, he is bereft of life, his is not pining for the Fjords and it was definitely more than a scratch.
Like the parrot in Monty Python he has snuffed it, kicked the bucket. David has gone to the great mosh pit in the sky.
He would be well chuffed that I managed to shoehorn that in.
David was 42 the Sunday before his operation and we went out to celebrate, David had a steak and we ate birthday cake and I managed to find a minute to tell him how proud I was of him for his bravery in the face of such adversity.
We feared this outcome a little but we didn’t expect it.
The worst has come to pass though and David is forever 42.
In Hitch Hikers guide to the galaxy (much loved by David) the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.
This is now unreservedly true.
David means beloved and he was so so loved.
You are all here today because of love.
So yes the answer to life the universe and everything is 42 because it signifies David and that means love.
I will miss you forever. So long and thanks for all the fish.
Thank you, Louise.
And now, please stand. Before the curtains close and we look no more on these magnificent boots, please let your true feelings out.
DO NOT CLOSE CURTAINS AT THIS POINT
A life like David’s deserves more than a minute of applause, but a minute will have to do. This is not a funeral. Please clap and cheer, sing if you want. Feel the Force and let it flow through you. Punch it!
(One minute’s mayhem)
Please sit.
Eulogy
A Jedi does the hard things, because they can. David – Dave or Shep to his friends – did the hard things every day. Just getting up was sometimes a victory. David “picked himself up, dusted himself down and carried on”.
You could say he had two lives. One out in the town, where he was a regular sight in more than one boozer, and the other with his family, addicted to the ‘Great British Bake-Off’ and yelling at the telly when he knew the answers to the questions on ‘Bridge of Lies’.
It seemed you couldn’t go anywhere in Birmingham without bumping into someone who knew him. He was very well known in town. He’d been a cellarman at the Actress and Bishop, the Distillery and the Button Factory. He sorted the beers at the Moseley Folk Festival and latterly was a linen porter at the Hotel Divan. Even when he was forced to give up his beloved beer about 18 months ago, he still went out with his friends to pub and club. Once, after a Pink Floyd tribute band concert at the Symphony, David took his mom and dad into a local pub, and sure enough, in just a few minutes he was holding court at the bar with a few of his mates.
You could hardly miss him. His ‘serial killer chic’ look with long Matrix-style leather coat and New Rock boots was pretty distinctive, and he had the attitude to go with it. He might have looked a bit intimidating, but its’s clear from all the messages from friends that he was a really genuine guy who would go the extra mile to help anyone if he could. He knew his stuff. He was a member of a regular quiz team and if anyone asked anything about science fiction, particularly Star Wars, Star Trek or Dr Who he was right there. He loved books – his favourite was Catch-22. He also loved ‘Ready Player One, he and Louise went to see it at a 4d cinema and he hated the film just as much as he hated being jostled about on the chair and sprayed in the face with water though. Louise never took him to a 4d film again but stuck with theatre shows after that.
One of his FaceBook friends posted this tribute on his feed:
“I first met him about ten years ago when I started working in the JQ and started going to the Actress (and Bishop) to do the quiz. I noticed there was a guy sat in the corner who seemed quite happy just to sit there and flip the bird to anyone and everyone who walked past. I found out a few weeks later that he was a glass collector on a weekend. I remember asking him why he didn’t serve and his reply was “the people that come in here on the weekend are absolute arseholes, I’d rather just serve the regulars”…he made me feel welcome in his own wonderful way, and making me a part of the regular’s group he set me on the path to where I am now. As I came to realise, he was anything but a ‘grumpy guy with a mohawk’ he was a shining light who deserved the very best and all the rest in life. He may be gone, but he will never be forgotten, certainly not by me and all who knew him at the Actress. All hail King Shep”.
Another friend tells a story about finding himself on a little pub crawl with Dave. They went from the Actress to Subside, then on to Snobs and back to Subside. While at Snobs, the friend lost sight of David, and found him outside consoling a young girl who had lost her friends and was crying her eyes out. She showed Dave a photo of her friends, and he went back into the club and didn’t come out again until he had found her party and reunited the girl with her mates. As another friend said, he was adored dearly, profoundly. A man with the heart of a King who lit up the room whenever he was in it, a man who found merry absurdity in nothing.
For every light that there is in the universe there is a dark side. The dark side in David took the form of the ‘Monster’. It was something he lived with, without knowing it, probably all his life. It was an acoustic neuroma – a brain tumour. The Jedi teach that it is not possible for a universe to contain great good without also the possibility of great evil. The Force is perfectly balanced, so when you look in to the dark side, the dark side looks back at you. David looked it right in the face, and was not afraid.
Even to the end, David was optimistic. He talked about the cool scars – his favourite movie was Hellraiser, after all – and the pint he would have when he could start drinking again. He did impossible things before breakfast.
The Monster may have contributed to some of the difficulties that he had in conventional life, but without it, David would not have been David. He never had huge troubles, but whenever he did, mum Kitty, dad Gordon and sister Louise and her husband Richard would be there to be a safety net. Louise and Cousin Tom formed the LTD Club and were inseparable as children, going to shows and gigs which nurtured David’s love of music. They wrote books together, had joyful times, went travelling to Venice, Malta, Bridlington and the Lake District. David and Tom were in a band together for a while, which increased his love for loud music. It was metal music he blamed when he went deaf in his left ear last November. The doctors sent him for an MRI scan and that’s the first time he met the Monster in person. Hiding in his brain stem, it was bigger than a golf ball, and growing slowly, every day. The surgeons and the staff were simply amazing. I’m not going into the details as that kind of sadness has no place here, but I can tell you that because of David’s strength, the family found that on Gordon’s birthday, David renewed his organ donor card. Though it took every ounce of their strength too, David’s organs were successfully transplanted; his liver saved the life of a woman in her 50s who had been on the list for over five years. His kidneys went to two men in their thiries and forties. His heart, so big and so generous, was unable to be used because the specialist team from Glasgow was unable to get to Birmingham in time, even though they kept Birmingham International Airport open after hours just in case the flight came in. His heart is now tissue, and each valve has the potential to save the life of a child born with heart defects. It gives the family great comfort to know that it will remain in Birmingham.
It would have been a privilege to know David as you all did. One who knew him best was his cousin Tom, and I’d like to invite him to deliver his own tribute to David.
Tom’s Tribute
When Kitty, Gordon and Louise asked me to do a reading for David, I felt truly honoured, but then how do you begin to write about your 42-year old cousin at his funeral? It’s unimaginable.
I thought I’d start by telling you about one of my earliest and fondest memories of our childhood. Picture us as young boys ploughing through a cataplana (fish stew) munching on every kind of fish going. All whilst standing on chairs to reach a pot that was as big as us both. Holidays meant everything to me having Louise and David to share amazing experiences with – you see they’re my cousins but much closer like true siblings.
Not sure if everyone knows but David had a modelling career as a teenager. He was my model during my early hairdressing competitions when I was just starting out as a barber. His nickname was ‘Rocky’ because someone thought he resembled Sylvester Stallone. We were a great partnership and we won every competition we entered for a couple of years.
He had an amazing head of hair and sat for hours with me while I practiced. He would even tolerate a bit of makeup to look more dapper. Great fun and loads of laughs!
It wasn’t just the hairdressing which brought us together. David and I were in a band with Leighton and Paul who are both here today. We played the circuit around Brum with Dave on keyboards and even managed to get kicked off stage once for our controversial lyrical content. Probably our proudest and most rock star moment! Music was a big part of my, David’s and Louise’s lives thanks to Uncle Gordon, who did a brilliant job of making sure we were brought up listening to the right music. Queen, Pink Floyd, Prince and many more.
To sum up words for David, I want to read you a line or two from a Pink Floyd song called ‘Time’. There were many that I could have chosen but these words seem to be the most fitting.
Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say
To David, my cousin, my brother and my friend
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.
Committal
That is the Way.
In the words of Grandmaster Yoda
A Jedi’s strongest ally is the Force. Home, this ally is. This energy surrounds us, it binds us, luminous beings are we, and not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you, through you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, even between you and the inanimate world. It is still there, between you and David.
But twilight comes upon all of us, and night must fall that the sun can rise again. Now will he rest. So now we say goodbye to David’s body, knowing that his life energy can never be destroyed. It has returned to the Force, to be reshaped into future memories. We will remember David every day; in heavy metal and horror movies, in quiz nights, pints and the insider jokes that will never mean anything to anyone else. As long as we keep David, or Dave, or Shep’s memory alive, he becomes more powerful than ever. As long as his memory survives he is not truly dead.
The Force calls to you, as it has called to David. Do not look to the Dark Side – David would have wanted you to look upon his life with love, and put aside grief, anger and despair. Look on the bright side of life. If you feel like singing along, go for it.
Cue: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
CURTAINS CLOSE with more applause and cheering
For David, for Dave, for Shep.
May the Force be with you.
If you wish to make a donation in David’s name to the Donor Family Network or the George Collier Memorial Fund there’s a box by the exit door.
