Glenn Eric Clare Rose (RIP)

My dear friend Glenn Rose, a member of the John Clare Society and a direct descendant of Clare, died at 5:30am on the 29th June, after 6 months in hospital in Newcastle - much of that time in the Intensive Care Unit. I spent 20 minutes speaking on the phone to Dorothy and Eric, Glenn's parents - now both in their mid-90s.  Dorothy is the grand-daughter of Clare's grand-daughter.

I had not heard from him since last December when he wrote to me after the death of my mother in November.

Glenn was a stalwart member of the Clare Society, and my highlight of the Festival in July each year was meeting him and Dorothy; we also served together for some years on the Management Committee of the Society.

The photos show him with his two grand-sons, and our commisserations must go to Ayla his daughter on her great loss.

Dorothy asked me to remember him in the final two lines of Clare's 'I am': 

"Untroubling & untroubled where I lie

The grass below—above the vaulted sky"