M I C H A E L W I L L I A M S
Michael Williams -- your grandson, Sam, will listen to the stories and he will learn from the stories that you were a goodly man and an admired and loved man. He will learn that you were a true Knight of your time. Your young man will walk tall and he will be proud. In his quietude, he will step aside and listen to the wind -- the oldest of voices -- he will hear your whispers, he will heed your counsel; his strength renewed.

Michael Williams -- your daughter, Finty, will keep the light burning brightly for her son. She will teach Sam to carry his name proudly. She will tell him when you went to America with your Dame and took New York and Hollywood by storm. She will tell him that your voice went -- and still does today -- around the globe, taking the world's listeners down Baker Street during good times and those too 'orrible to mention. She will teach him to listen and to question with care and to laugh and to celebrate with abandonment. And, finally, she will teach him to nurture ... to nurture your garden where grows that flower of peace. Though the soil be hard and the rocks many, she will teach him to endure.

Michael Williams -- your special lady, your special Jude -- that daughter of York, respected and admired artist, wife of a Knight, Dame of an Empire -- sits here today with thirty years of you in her heart --- and she is well. From that rainy day in Battersea to your sun splashed garden in Outwood, you have travelled arm-in-arm and heart-in-heart during good times and yes, even times too 'orrible to mention. In her quietude, she enters your garden o'er which your mantle is spread,

    Like the silver dew of the dawn.
    And tension and fear just melt away
    As serenity is born.
She, too, listens to the wind -- and gives thanks.
    We mourn.
    We remember.
    We applaud.
    We give thanks.

Michael Williams?

"I saw him once; he was a goodly man.
He was a man, take him for all in all.
I shall not look upon his like again."

Thanks to Mike Kennedy for sending me this tribute to Michael Williams. He tells me that the photo on this page is the photo that Dame Judi Dench chose to include on the front cover in Michael's Memorial Service Programme. The text is one of the many Memorial Service tributes to Michael Williams: July 9th, 2001, Saint Paul's, Covent Garden.

Return