Jack Kenneth White – now at peace.

Around noon on Tuesday, the Ides of March, my dad slipped away peacefully from us at Southhaven Nursing Home. His daughter and one of his sons were with him. What's the accepted phrase – "blessed release"? A wrench to our hearts nevertheless.

I spoke to one of his friends the next day, who said "He was a really nice bloke". Someone else called him "a really decent man". I remember him when he was strong and solid and capable, when at his peak he gathered respect and admiration for his vast output, his calmness under fire, his willingness to tackle the big stuff and not be daunted by it, and his capacity to pull it off.

I've learned too late, and not from him, about his early life, and some of the things which formed him, and appreciated the momentous times through which he lived at a very close remove. I regret not having talked to him more about that.

I stood beside him shortly after he left us and said to my family around me: "The best advice he gave me I didn't take. The best examples he set me I didn't follow. He bailed me out of so many of my youthful scrapes." The last few months I have reflected on and better understood the positive lessons that he taught me.

May his journey from this human existence be smooth. May his next destination be beautiful. May he be released from the pain which has dogged him. May he find the lucidity which has recently eluded him. May he be happy and free.