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ERIC KNIGHT
We say goodbye to another fine Rotarian who has served our Club in outstanding fashion for many years.
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our Club since 1967, died peacefully at his home at Sullens Farm, Upminster, in the early hours of the morning of 19th July 2010 after a lengthy illness. He was 93 years old. Born in the later stages of the First World War, Eric was in his prime during the Second. Though spared because of his work from military service, his task of helping to feed the na- tion was no picnic, since his fields lay smack bang under the flight path of enemy bombers making for Central London. Eric was a farmer
ric Knight, a greatly loved and deeply re- spected member of
man happy in himself and content with all that life had presented to him. He had a superb, impish sense of humour which stood him in good stead particu- larly when he came into our Club in 1967.
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through and through. He came from a family which had farmed land in the Upminster area for sev- eral generations, and had ob- viously absorbed the skills and traditions of his profes- sion from earliest childhood onwards. And yet he was widely and deeply read in the theory and practice of farming, and could discourse in quite learned fashion about the composition of soil and the most suitable meth- ods of cultivating arable crops under a wide variety of conditions. Specialising in arable
farming, Eric was quick to embrace all the most modern methods, and the farm at Aveley in particular was equipped with all the most up-to-date equipment for preparing harvested vegeta- bles for delivery to major wholesalers. He generously received parties of pupils from Emerson Park School over a lengthy period to give them superb insight into modern methods of arable farming. Skilled, practised and
well-versed in the theory of farming, Eric nonetheless had a tremendously deep faith in the ultimate good- ness of nature. Yes, he main- tained that farming was dif- ferent from all other indus- tries in that it was totally ex- posed to the vagaries of na- ture and could never, there- fore, be completely con- trolled by man. And yet his long experience of farming left him with the firm belief that nature would in the end always balance herself out and prove beneficial to man- kind. Perhaps for this reason he could never really accept the current theories of global warming caused by the burn- ing of carbon fuels. Certainly it was for this reason that Eric was always convinced of the ultimate goodness of life, and lived his own life so calmly and confidently.
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life, and lived it to the full with all the confidence of a
ut this is enough of the serious side of Eric‟s personality. Eric loved
being on the termut and the progress of foot „n mewth among the sugar beet. There would also often be an ex- change of ribaldries with Harry Wilson, generally of a somewhat intestinal nature. Eric‟s daughter also in- formed the funeral gathering of an occasion in John An- thony‟s surgery, when John happened to run into Eric in the midst of a packed wait- ing room. John seized the prescription from Eric‟s hand and perused it seri- ously for a few moments, be- fore opining gravely, “Ah, glad to see they‟re keeping you on the Viagra, Eric.” Again, we see that Eric
Club‟s wannabee wits, of- ten playing the farmer‟s boy just up from the coun- try. Some few of us may remember the weekly dia- logue with the late Bill Ev- ans, who would greet Eric with the words “Mornin‟ Marster h‟Eric”, to Eric‟s re- sponse of “Mornin‟ Marster Willum.” Then would en- sue discussions of the floy
n particular, Eric de- lighted in being the straight man to the
had the somewhat rare confi- dence of being able not only to take a joke against him- self, but to relish the fun be- hind it.
and humorous give and take was all part of the spirit which has long imbued the activities of our Club, spring- ing from the good fellowship which underlies our work in
But this sense of fun 16
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