Obituaries

[Cawaale]

^So, Basically you been planning yours for the last 10yrs. how does it feel thinking about your own death for 10yrs makraa? just curious.

[cynical lady]

:rolleyes:

[cynical lady]

Patrick Pakenham, who has died aged 68, was a talented barrister and the second son of the 7th Earl and Countess of Longford; highly intelligent, articulate and possessed of an attractive and powerful voice, Pakenham could have attained great professional heights, but his boisterous nature and bouts of mental illness rendered it impossible for him to adhere to the routine required to sustain his position at the Bar, and he retired after 10 years' practice.

 

During his legal career, Pakenham became something of a legend, and, 25 years on, accounts of his exploits are still current. During his appearance before an irascible and unpopular judge in a drugs case, the evidence, a bag of cannabis, was produced. The judge, considering himself an expert on the subject, said to Pakenham, with whom he had clashed during the case: "Come on, hand the exhibit up to me quickly." Then he proceeded to open the package. Inserting the contents in his mouth, he chewed it and announced: "Yes, yes of course that is cannabis. Where was the substance found, Mr Pakenham?" The reply came swiftly, if inaccurately: "In the defendant's anus, my Lord."

 

Pakenham's final appearance in court has been variously recorded. As defence counsel in a complicated fraud case, he was due to address the court during the afternoon session, and had partaken of a particularly well-oiled lunch.

 

"Members of the jury," he began, "it is my duty as defence counsel to explain the facts of this case on my client's behalf; the Judge will guide you and advise you on the correct interpretation of the law and you will then consider your verdict. Unfortunately," Pakenham went on, "for reasons which I won't go into now, my grasp of the facts is not as it might be. The judge is nearing senility; his knowledge of the law is pathetically out of date, and will be of no use in assisting you to reach a verdict. While by the look of you, the possibility of you reaching a coherent verdict can be excluded." He was led from the court.

 

Patrick (always known as Paddy) Maurice Pakenham was born on April 17 1937, the third of the eight children of Francis (Frank) Pakenham and his wife Elizabeth (later the Earl and Countess of Longford). Frank Longford was variously an Oxford don, a Labour minister, a City banker, and an outspoken campaigner for penal reform. His wife was a noted historical biographer.

 

Three of Paddy's siblings, Thomas Pakenham (who succeeded to the earldom in 2001), Lady Antonia Fraser and Lady Rachel Billington, are successful authors, while another sister, Judith Kazantzis, is a poet. Of his two younger brothers, Sir Michael Pakenham, a diplomat, was the Ambassador to Poland from 2001-2003, and Kevin Pakenham is an investment banker. A fourth sister, Catherine, died in a motor accident in 1969.

 

His parents converted to Catholicism in the 1940s, so Paddy, who remained a devout Catholic, and his brothers were sent to Ampleforth. He then took up a place at Magdalen College, Oxford, and was called to the Bar in 1958.

 

Pakenham had an exceptional memory and could be wise and compassionate. It was thought that his tendency to manic depression, which required occasional admission to nursing homes, may have had its origins in two unconnected events.

 

At the aged of 17 he suffered a nervous breakdown, a result of the ruthless treatment meted out to officer cadets in the first six weeks of his national service. In his mid-twenties his mental state was further damaged by a boating tragedy off the Sussex coast. Pakenham survived, behaving with exemplary courage, but two of his closest friends perished.

 

Notwithstanding all this, whilst at the Bar, he became a proficient golfer, on one occasion winning the Bar Golf Tournament at Rye. From 1962 he was a colourful member of the exclusive but mercifully unpompous Sunningdale Golf Club, where he triumphed in the Founder's Foursomes. In his autobiography, the golfer Sam Torrance described how Pakenham "would always be turning up wearing different coloured socks or different shoes or even no socks at all. His trousers would be held up by a tie instead of a belt. Paddy once told me I would never make it on Tour unless I improved my short irons. He was dead right."

 

Pakenham made several attempts to rejoin the Bar, at last persuading someone to offer him a place in chambers. Pakenham was treated to a homily on ethics and the standards of behaviour to which he was expected to adhere. But the following day, Pakenham's first in his new place of work, was interrupted by the arrival of two burly policemen, who then proceeded to lead the head of chambers away in handcuffs.

 

Paddy Pakenham's outstanding gift was for loyalty and friendship, and he had countless friends in all walks of life. Whilst he could be a tremendous attention-seeker, he was also generous and loving, and created an atmosphere of immense gaiety wherever he went. All his friends were tolerant of his erratic behaviour, which was also the source of much of his charm. He had been suffering from cancer and died on June 8.

 

An unexpected but entirely happy consequence of one of his bouts of exuberance was that he married his nurse, Mary Plummer. This union, which led to a divorce and then re-marriage, yielded three sons, Richard, Guy and Harry, to all of whom Pakenham was a devoted father. Latterly, he found love and companionship with Dominique De Borchgrave, a Belgian countess resident in London.

[Ibtisam]

10years :eek: that is a long time to be thinking about your send off. Surely this time could be used on something better :eek:

[cynical lady]

Haa!! Interesting how you’ve turned that into something else.

[Malika]

^An interesting interest dear,I do take a glance every now and then but not obsessively. Although news of death tends to send me on a frenzy of cleaning mode - got to clean the house,got to clean the house,hadha dimatii cawaan at least people should come to a clean house..Looool.

[Ibtisam]

That is one long one, and some parts were mean. I did not even know people can write mean stuff on these things. Can you imagine reading that about your father, I would kill the *^? who wrote such stuff.

 

CL, I don't know, it would just freak me out to think of something for so long; for example two nights ago I watched "fallen" the movie, when Denzel Washington is fighting with a Jiin that refuses to die! Since then I've been freaking/ jumpy. For example this morning after Fajar I was sitting on my prayer mat, and I felt a shiver/coldness suddenly, automatically I thought of Jinns and started read/ making dua against them and seeking Allah's protection. I keep thinking back to that freak movie and now each time it freaks me out a little. I can’t imagine what it would be like to focus on death so much. I once got hooked on signs of the day of Judgment, the dijaal and went into a different world all together, for ages my only interest was different perspectives on this, prediction, signs, what has passed, forerunners. It got so obsessive I have to bring myself out of that world and stop obsessing about shadows and seeing different means for everything. I guess I imagine you are a bit like that about death.

[BUKURR]

Originally posted by cynical lady:

Id1ot.

 

For what am I an idi0t? Enlighten me lady cynical, or should I just literally take you on your name!

[cynical lady]

Ibti- No, nothing like that for me.

[BUKURR]

^ What a cynical women, it must be from wherever you came from Tanzania or Tanjanika. Somali's don't have these behavioral disorders.