Dave Gemmell died in the early hours of this morning, four days before his 58th birthday, following a quadruple heart bypass last week (Monday, July 17). He had seemed to be making a good recovery, though when I spoke to him yesterday at his home he sounded exhausted.  He was struggling to make 500 steps a day as required, and had to “plan ahead to go upstairs”. He had been home for only a couple of days.

His wife Stella found him in his study this morning; it seemed he had been dead for some hours. There will be a post-mortem to find the cause of death, which is not yet known.  Stella rang us at about 10.30am. It was a huge shock.

Dave has been a close friend since the late 60s. When we met he was sports editor at the Acton Gazette, and I was a sub-editor. We went out for an omelette one lunchtime, and after that I frequently went round his flat, which was nearby, to play chess. After losing to him, I was rash enough to say I would never lose to him again. We played constantly until he did beat me, one day on the Broads. He would never play me again.

We kept in touch when I left London to come back to Norfolk, and he eventually moved down to Hastings. We met intermittently. He rose high in the newspaper world until he reached a crisis when he thought he had cancer and wrote a book about it – a fantasy book, which turned out to be a best-seller called Legend. It was the first of well over 20 books in the heroic fantasy mould, and he was a wonderful writer in any genre – especially good at characterisation and the poignant twist.

This brought him a certain amount of wealth, with which he was extremely generous to relatives and friends. He was a big man and a larger-than-life figure to whom you could listen for hours. He was a natural storyteller.

Recently he remarried and moved to a beautiful house in Sussex which we visited on three or four occasions. He had not been really well for a long time and hoped for a rejuvenated life after his operation. I shall miss him hugely. So will many, many other people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5224868.stm

I believe this is a picture of my wife’s great-great grandfather. Or to put it another way, my grandchildren’s great-great-great-great grandfather. His name is James Myhill, and he was born in 1851, maybe at North Walsham. I have this on the authority of no less a figure than my wife’s aunt Ethel, the only survivor of her generation of the Beales family.

The hot weather continues. Today we had lunch at Park Farm, and yesterday we had our jabs for South Africa – diphtheria, typhoid, polio and tetanus. Don’t feel too bad, considering.

Great news from Wellington Hospital yesterday. G’s bypass operation went very well, and he even got out of bed briefly, which totally amazed me. I spoke to S, who was at the hospital, and she seemed very upbeat. Want to keep ringing to check, but I guess you can overdo that sort of thing, especially when you’re not a relative.

Last night the Tuesday group ate al fresco – chicken and banana korma. Balmy evening – so much so that even I enjoyed being outside.

Turning out to be a month of ups and downs. Had a great birthday with Dot at Dunston Hall, and this weekend with David, Vicky and the grandchildren was wonderful. Took them up to a fair on Chapelfield Gardens yesterday, and today we joined in the annual church “pilgrimage” to Waxham. The weather was perfect – warm but with a cooling breeze – and Oliver and Amy had fun in the sea, followed by a barbecue. Oliver is turning out to be a good little footballer, especially his tackling. His tractor-driving is top-class, too. He gets all the reversing angles right!

The downs? Well, farewell to Dot’s aunt Evelyn, and now one of my closest friends – probably the closest over the years – has to have a quadruple heart bypass operation tomorrow. Spoke to him just now in hospital, and he’s obviously worried, not only for himself but for his wife. He’s very resilient and a fighter, so he has a good chance, but so many things can go wrong.

The picture is of Dot at Blakeney, looking out to sea.  Evocative.

This is a not very good reproduction of a picture of Dot’s mother (right) and her two sisters, taken at Evelyn’s home, Meadow Farm, Buck Brigg. The funeral for Evelyn (left) is next Tuesday at Erpingham Church. Erpingham is best known as the village where the school once had a head teacher called Wyatt Earp. No, really.

We shall be taking Ethel, the surviving sister in the picture, to the funeral.

Last night Dot and I went with Anne and Philip Robinson on a treasure trail round Norwich, starting and ending at By Appointment. Punch at beginning, canapes in the middle (Chapelfield Gardens) and meal at the end, which turned out to be the wrong side of 9pm after a 7pm start. Philip was flagging a bit, but we were still the second group back. Got most of the clues, but didn’t win. Not sure why. I suspect a fix. Lovely warmish evening.

Another death, announced in the EDP today: Paul Blake, a teacher of mine at the City of Norwich School, who gave me a lot of encouragement in my cricket (off-break bowling) and especially chess. He gave a huge amount of his time to organising and transporting the all-conquering CNS chess team in the early 1960s, and probably if it were not for him I would never have got involved in club and county chess, which has given me huge amounts of pleasure (as well as a little agony).

 Mr Blake was a member of the United Reformed Church on Ipswich Road, Norwich,  and I met him again in the early 90s when he was involved in speaking to the Christian group at Cedar House, Albemarle Road, where my mother lived at the time. He was a gentle, caring man who did a lot of unsung good.

Among those still living, it’s quite remarkable that four friends all have birthdays on July 4 or July 5 – Joan Brown and Liz Day (4) and Anita Carey and my god-daughter Holly Henderson (5). Clearly get on well with fellow-Cancers!

Dot’s Aunt Evelyn died at 1am today in North Walsham Hospital. She was 90 and had never retired, working for her son Peter at his Buck Brigg nurseries right into the end of her 80s, though she had been quite ill for the last year or so. She lived with her daughter Rosemary in a delightful spot in North Norfolk.

The picture shows Evelyn on her mother’s lap. The other two children are Georgie, who died aged about six; and John, who died in the Far East during the second world war.

The weather has been very hot the last few days, slowing everyone down. But this morning (before she received the news) Dot was out playing pitch and putt witha friend. This evening it seems that a thunderstorm might be brewing. Caddington has already had a severe storm.