Introduction to the Celebration

Jamie Gough

How should we remember and celebrate our darling Nick?

Nick gave me some quite specific wishes for what he wanted at his funeral.  We weren’t able to do any of them at his funeral in February, so we have organised this celebration so that we can, along the lines that he wanted.  Nick wanted us particularly to celebrate five aspects of his life: his visual art work, his climate activism, his work in the theatre, his promotion of creative teaching and learning, and his loving relationships to his families and friends.  He wanted us to discuss, and learn from, and take forward each of these aspects of his life.  

First of all, Nick was a devoted and supportive friend to so many people.   I don’t know of anyone else who gave his friendship so intensely and to so many people – so generously.  This was so for his five god-children, for his enormous family, for his closest friends and many many other friends.  He wanted to know about everything in his friend’s life – their relationships, political activities, their work, their sadnesses.  So many of us tell our friends what they should do, how they should think and feel.  Instead, Nick asked questions, drew people out, helped them to think things through.  And he was completely attentive: as Sarah and Darryl say, ‘he always remembered what you’d been doing and had done before, and asked you for an update’.  He supported his friends when they were in difficulty and in times of crisis.  He gave emotional time and energy because of his huge love for humanity.  

So in this celebration, some members of his families, and some friends, will talk about Nick’s love and support for them.  

Nick did an extraordinary number of different types of work.  He trained in Eng Lit, then musical theatre.  He taught dance, he choreographed shows.  He produced a fabulous one-man show in 2006 about dogs in space, and acted in Charlie Barnes’s Edward Carpenter show.  For 8 years he was the director of the youth theatre at the Crucible.  He was the director for Sheffield of the Creative Partnerships programme, which fostered creativity in teaching and learning in 70 schools.  He engaged in national and international discussions about teaching and learning, and particularly the role of creeativity in these. 

What these diverse jobs had in common was that he put his heart and soul into them, developing his skills and knowledge.  And his central aim was always communicating clearly and rationally with the people he worked with, and listening to them with great attention.  In this way, hundreds of people benefitted from his work, and for many of them Nick transformed their lives.    

So in this celebration, we will have a presentation divised by former members of the Crucible Youth Theatre about his approach to drama.  And we will have a presentation from Gemma about his ideas on education policy and teaching and learning.  

Like so many of us, Nick sometimes had regrets about paths not taken.  Sometimes he wished he had become an artist.  Fortunately, he avoided that cut-throat profession, but in his retirement threw himself into making visual art.   He did the Fine Art foundation course at Chesterfield College, along with his friends Linda, Angela and Jenny, with whom, characteristically, he formed a little art collective.   He produced varied and beautiful pictures and sculptures, many of them, but not all of them, politically charged.  

So we have an exhibition of his art work here – down at the end of the room, and in the lounge in the foyer.  Linda, Jenny and Jenny will explain Nick’s approach to visual art and its politics.  

From his late teens, Nick was intensely political.  He hated the exploitative and oppressive system we live in, and he worked to change this.  In his twenties, he was involved in the gay liberation movement and anti-sexist men’s movement in London in ways that fused the personal and political.  He put a lot of energy and time into co-counselling to enable him and others to overcome the traumas of growing up gay in a homophobic society, and to direct their anger outwards rather than inwards.  And I think it was in co-counselling that he developed his amazing ability to listen to others.  It was also then that he became aware of what Richard Sennett has called ‘the hidden injuries of class’, and became committed to combatting these at both a personal and political level – in fact, to socialism.  

In the last 25 years, his biggest commitment was to the movement against climate catastrophe – he put enormous energy into many of the campaigning organisations in Sheffield.  His particular concern was how to communicate with the public – how to persuade people that they can act, in both personal and collective ways.  Nick stood in the best tradition of the Enlightenment – that through good communication and critical thinking a better society could be built.  But this had to be accompanied by collective action against power, against capitalism.  

So we will have a presentation on Nick’s climate activism by five people with whom he collaborated over many years.  This will show some videos which Nick made, and a song for which Nick wrote the lyrics.  And a challenge for you to discuss.  

Nick wanted his funeral to be participatory.  At various points, there will be the opportunity for you to discuss Nick’s ideas with your neighbour or neighbours.  And I hope these discussions will continue over dinner, in the evening, and beyond.  

Nick changed so many people’s lives for the better, gave joy to so many friends, and helped to shift what people think about the world.  His cousin Claudia said:  ‘Nick changed changed what I know, and he changed who I am’.  In this way, he lives on in all of us.  His life should give us inspiration: to love and nurture our friends and everyone we work with; and to fight to change the world for the better.