bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 4 (2001-2002) — Winter 2001/2002, pp. 21–22
Bernard Brodie was employed by the Public Service of Canada from1968 to 1996. He worked in the Departments of Employment and Immigration, Treasury Board of Canada and Foreign Affairs and International Trade. From 1996 to 2001 he was Principal of The Janiculum Group consultancy firm. He was former President of the Ottawa Branch of the Oxford Society and the Elmwood School Association, and Secretary and Founding Member of the Canadian Immigration Historical Society. A service was held for Bernard on Saturday, March 9, 2002. The eulogy was delivered by his long-time friend Rod Grainger.
There are too few gentlemen in the world today. Too few men with good manners, too few men who know how to treat a lady, too few men who are comfortable in a tie and blazer, too few men who can get to an event on time, too few men who can give you their undivided attention, too few men with respect for their elders. The world has just lost a fine gentleman with the passing of our dear friend Bernard Brodie. He had all of these qualities, and many more.
There are too few people who can write the English language well. Certainly there are plenty of people who were brought up in the creative writing era, people who are able to spin a yarn. But, there are too few people who can write a letter, a speech or paper, that is readable, factual, colourful and properly structured. The world has lost such a writer with the passing of Bernard Brodie. He could hammer out a paper with the greatest of ease, and, if you ever saw Bernard typing, you would know what I mean by “hammer out”. He would bash away at the keyboard, uttering the occasional curse as his wide fingers struck two keys at the same time.
Bernard loved to pepper his writing with words like “sundering” and “bifurcating”. He hated the tendency to “dumb down” the language to the lowest common denominator. He seemed to take it as a personal challenge to maintain some sort of complexity and beauty in the written and spoken word in the workplace. He loved to tell the story of the time when he was asked to remove the word “shepherding” from a paper he wrote, because they said it would make people think of sheep. He dutifully did so with a grimace, while wondering why, if “shepherding” made people think of sheep, his employer’s frequent use of the acronym “MOO”, did not make people think of cows.
There are too few people these days who are willing to accept responsibility for their own actions. Their lack of money, their lack of career progression, the bad behaviour of their children, are all somebody else’s fault. Bernard willingly accepted responsibility for whatever life handed him, and took responsibility for a lot of matters that were quite beyond his control or even influence. He was most happy with a performance appraisal in which he was described as being “responsible to a fault”. You did not have to be in Bernard’s company very long before hearing him say, “Oh, I’m sorry”. If you knocked over a glass, tripped, or ran into any minor misfortune in his company, he would always assume that he was the cause of it, and apologize. You had to love him for this.
As a father, Bernard never faltered in his love and support for lan and Elanor, supporting them through all their successes and setbacks. He was so proud of them both.
A friend, one of the many who visited Bernard in the May Court hospice, told him how frightened many of his contemporaries were at the news of his serious condition. He told him that some were wondering who was next, having only recently lost mutual close friends in Tom Morry and Michael Vaughan. Another said, “Oh, they’re on our page”. Bernard’s response was, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten them”
A friend and former colleague recently wrote to Bernard. He said it was some time before he understood why Bernard had not progressed to the rank of Assistant Deputy Minister, and beyond. He had the brain, the impressive educational qualifications, the public speaking ability, the charm, the physical presence, the apparent ease in varied company. He was a great coach and mentor. In fact he had the lot. This friend concluded that it was the fact that Bernard cared too much that was the stumbling block in the way of his further career progression, and the cause of much of the stress he suffered throughout his career. He had a great sense of personal responsibility. He cared about doing the right thing. He had values that he was not prepared to compromise. He knew a crock when he saw it and was not afraid to speak up.
Bernard kept up his reputation as the ultimate responsible person right to the end. As those very close to him know, he left all his affairs in perfect order. His only regret was that he bought his house in Prescott at the wrong time. He did enjoy it for the short time that he lived there. He said it brought back memories of day trips with his young family to see the ships go by.
The final evidence of Bernard’s sense of responsibility came in his efforts to write his own eulogy in the last few weeks. Quite unlike Bernard and his lifelong quest for perfection in the English language, he had not looked up the word “eulogy”. If he had, he would have found that it means “an expression of praise”. Quite like Bernard, he wanted the eulogy to be an expression of gratitude, his gratitude. He was grateful for where he was born and, what he called, “the accident of his birth” that brought him his father, mother and brother. He was grateful for the opportunity to attend Shrewsbury School and Oxford University. (He is still remembered at both institutions.) He was grateful for the opportunity to emigrate to Canada, and grateful for the opportunity to work in the Public Service of Canada, which introduced him to virtually all of his friends. More could be said about Bernard’s gratitude, but this is our time, our time to praise Bernard.
Bernard loved to laugh and to make his friends laugh, which he did with considerable ease. He loved all kinds of humour, but particularly British humour. He loved radio programs from the 50s and 60s like “Round the Horne” ’, and he could take on numerous parts “My name is immaterial — Sir James Immaterial” ’ He had this prodigious memory for all types of comedy sketches from the past, and was always willing to recite extracts from them. He was the oral historian of British comedy. I think he had memorized all of the Black Adder television programs. He apparently did this when he was doing the ironing. He must have done a lot of ironing.
Bernard would often say, “Do you remember the famous line by (insert any comedy character you like)?” Of course, hardly anyone ever did, until Bernard reminded them. He always seemed to be able to dredge up something that fitted the occasion.
A colleague recently recalled one of the few things that made him smile during his time in Treasury Board. It was watching Bernard in staff meetings, listening to his boss. The door would often be open and, as his friend went by, Bernard would give him the famous (to Bernard and the cognoscenti), Oliver Hardy gesture with his tie. He would flap it between his fingers, in a signal that they both knew meant, “A fine mess you’ve got us in Stanley”.
One of Bernard’s later bosses, a close friend, once went to investigate the source of hysterical laughter coming from an office. He found Bernard, with his good friends Tom Morry and Michael Vaughan, writing a speech for the Secretary of the Treasury Board. What made it so funny was that they were writing it between them — one word at a time, taking turns with the words. The subject matter of the speech was something that none of them believed in, something to do with pillars and posts, so they decided to take it lightly, using every fashionable bit of Public Service jargon that they could recall, without necessarily understanding it, or caring to understand it for that matter. They were pretty proud of the final product and sent it up the line. What Bernard found particularly hilarious about this event was that the speech was accepted unchanged, and delivered.
Bernard had the most wonderful self-deprecating sense of humour. I believe that it was only in recent months that he came to realize that his ability to tell jokes at his own expense showed his inner self-confidence. A story that his friends never tired of hearing concerned an event during the time that he worked in Rome. Two lovely ladies from Ottawa were on holiday in Rome, and Bernard entertained them and showed them around. One evening, they were out for a walk, Bernard, with a lady on each arm. They passed through an archway that lead onto the most beautiful square. Apparently, everything about the square was just right, the lighting, the smell, the general warm ambience, and the beautiful architecture. The lady on Bernard’s left, obviously moved by the scene, leaned around to the lady on Bernard’s right and said, “Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely to be here with a man”. ’. Bernard laughed and said, “Ahem”
Bernard was a man of many talents. I would venture to say that most of us only saw some of them. I know that, just a few years ago, he surprised long-time friends when he burst into song and played the guitar. As you can imagine, he was quite modest about his singing and playing ability, deferring to others in the party who also sang and played. That was Bernard, modest, as always.
Bernard once said that he continued to work after his retirement for a number of reasons, some to do with family and taking special holidays. Mostly though, he said he needed to work because he needed the constant validation that recognition of his talents in the workplace brought him. When he finally had to stop work, he came to realize that he didn’t need this validation, that he was a worthy and successful person just as he was, something his friends had tried to tell him before.
Bernard was not afraid to die. He was not a religious man, but he had an open mind and was prepared to contemplate all sorts of futures after his death. He knew that he had been a good man all his life, never deliberately hurting anyone, and helping many. He knew that, if there is a heaven, he had the qualifications to get in.
Bernard was a dignified man, and the only thing he feared about dying, was losing his dignity in the process. He said he did not want to die all wired up and with tubes sticking out of him. He got his wish. With the love and nursing of his long-time lady friend, Gladys, and the extraordinary care that he received from the May Court hospice, Bernard died without pain and with his dignity intact.
Thank you Bernard, Bernard, Bernie, for being our friend, for being in our lives, for making us laugh, for setting such high standards and for being such a loveable, lovely man. We will miss you more than you ever knew.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 4 (2001-2002) — Winter 2001/2002, pp. 21–22. Read the rest of this issue →
