Michael Brennan
Joe was a genuine Boomer, born in 1946, the year after World Two War ended. His parents, Jimmy and Winnie had sadly lost their first-born child, Jim, after only one month.
So Joe was a precious child. But, in some ways, he had a difficult childhood. This was post-war Britain; with food rationing and local streets scarred with bombsites. Joe’s father had returned from war with TB and Joe knew him only as an invalid. His mother supported the family by running a corner shop in Gateshead. The family lived in the one-bedroom flat behind the shop, until they were able to move to a larger house in the same street. The shop sold bread, delivered fresh every morning, meat kept in an old-fashioned meat safe, and just about everything else-open all hours, just like the TV series.
It was a tightly knit family. Joe was very close to his father. Jimmy had obviously been a gregarious and athletic man in his youth. I think it must have been very frustrating for him that he wasn’t able to play physically with Joe. Joe and I were talking recently of our vivid memories of going with Uncle Jimmy to the local week- end cricket matches, where Uncle Jimmy would hold court. North Durham was the team, amateur of course, but with one professional, Frank ‘Typhoon’ Tyson. Winnie, despite her demanding workload, running the shop, and caring for her husband and her son, was always cheerful and chatty. She was a favourite aunt of me and my siblings. She and Joe had a lovingly combative and cheerily close relationship throughout her life.
Joe spent a lot of time with my family. We lived only a few streets away. He had a streak of independence from an early age. But he was always a lively character with an enquiring mind and an interest in the world around him which he retained as an adult.
Joe was the youngest of a small band of cousins. He was in some ways a bit of a loner, but he also had, as well as a love of his own parents, a keen awareness of and an interest in his extended family, and in its history. I sometimes think from his position at the foot of the pyramid, as it were, he saw and appreciated more of what was going on than the rest of us. In later years, Joe would often surprise me by coming out with some fact about our family that I had forgotten or never even knew about.
Not surprisingly Joe was very proud of the family that he and Barbara have brought up, they are the living testament of the kind of man he was. Joe and I were reminiscing recently about our time as boy sopranos in St. Joseph’s Church Choir in Gateshead, led by Jimmy Rourke. Joe and I only overlapped for a couple of years, as Joe went on for a long time after my voice had broken. The choir was very important to him, and I think had a lasting effect on him. We had quite a good reputation locally. Joe said to me just a few weeks ago. ‘It’s amazing when you think about it. Jimmy Rourke took rough working-class kids from the back streets of Gateshead and had them singing Mozart, Palestrina and William Byrd with artistry, and appreciating it. He was a great teacher, really.’
I wondered whether that influenced Joe’s choice of career. In his early teens he went off to be trained in the teaching order the Christian Brothers. He was a good Catholic, a dedicated chorister, but certainly not sanctimonious. He was a big energetic boisterous youth. So I think that most of us were quite surprised by this decision. Discipline in the order was quite strict, to the extent that Joe was not allowed to come home for a family funeral. I don’t know whether this had anything to do with Joe’s later decision to leave the order. But in 1968 he did leave, though with his faith intact.
I can imagine that Joe was a very effective teacher. He had presence -being so tall must be an advantage –personality, and passion. A passion, I think for social justice, which could often manifest itself as strong annoyance at what he saw as injustice or folly. It would be true to say that Joe didn’t suffer folly gladly, but he was always liable to be charitable to individual fools.
Joe was a ’genuine boomer’ but I think that would be a bit unfair if it suggested that he was particularly a loud person. He wasn’t. But he always made his presence felt – he was a bit larger than life. And his life size was pretty large. Like myself, and others in my family, he liked a vigorous discussion, which the censorious sometimes call an argument. Unlike some, however, he did listen to what the other side was saying - and gave it some kind of consideration.
In his last few months Joe displayed a kind of irascible acceptance that I think was very typical of his approach to life. Like his father before him, as a hitherto very active person, he must have found the physical restrictions on his lifestyle really irksome -he certainly pushed against the limitations they imposed. And he was also sometimes reluctant to seek medical advice and could be critical of anything that he perceived as red-tape or inefficiency in the medical bureaucracy.
But when he discussed his actual condition, he was calmly philosophical. ‘It is what it is…and when they tell me I have to go into the hospice, I’ll know that’s it.’ And if I ever mentioned pain, he’d say, ‘No, no, Michael, I’ve got my bottle of morphine. There’s no problem.’ Except, as he did say, he’d have to stay off the morphine, when he wanted to drive his car- which I gather was whenever he thought his family weren’t watching.
So, Farewell to Joe. He was a real, genuine, individual person. I know his voice will sound in my head often in the years to come. The family he was so proud of can be proud of him.
Christian Torjussen
I knew Joe for about 65 years.
We were Christian Brother postulants in the Wirral for a couple of years and after we had done O-levels went on to become novices in the rather grand Toddington Manor set in grounds landscaped by Capability Brown in Gloucestershire.
Both Joe and I had lost our fathers to illness at a young age and this along with a readiness to talk during our occasional walks in the surrounding countryside, certainly played a part in creating a bond of friendship. Being half Scottish, half Norwegian with an interest in dialect, I exchanged words from my Doric of North East Scotland and Joe’s Geordie, which has words akin to Norwegian. In fact I am not alone in remembering Joe for this trait - he was known for being very much a Geordie and a fan of the Magpies.
At Ledsham, where we remained over Christmas we had been fooling around on the temporary stage, where we had no right to be and had accidentally broken a footlight. Confessing the damage to ancient Brother Maxie, Joe told a whopper, saying we had been on the stage rehearsing a short play. In that way we ended up displaying our zany comedy skills in writing and performing “The Star Bar Murder Mystery”.
In recent years, Joe spoke of how he was deeply touched by the death of a fellow postulant on the North Wales Road. Gerry was returning in the dark from a dental appointment dressed in his black suit on the unlit road and was hit by a car. Joe had a very vivid memory of us postulants singing at the funeral in the Scotland Road area of Liverpool. He had himself been in a cathedral boys’ choir in the North East so the singing of Gregorian chant and polyphonic motets was something he took a lot of pleasure in. Later, in Manchester, he would sing folk songs in pubs and become a sought-after bass in local choirs.
We were a group of about twenty who received the habit and entered upon a year of spiritual training at Saint Mary’s Toddington. Joe received the name of Brother Lawrence. The novitiate was an intense introduction to a life of prayer with daily meditation and the study of the Constitution and the Bible. We spent most of the day respecting a monastic silence. These were happy days enriched by close contact with nature, manual labour and frequent sport - rugby, football, cricket and running.
Brother Gabriel Owen, our tiny novice master, of 5’2” was also a very keen gardener. Not long ago, Joe recalled how the “Novie” would single him out for certain menial tasks, collecting cow patties with a shovel and wheelbarrow to make a fertiliser slurry, for example. Joe was constant and humble in bearing this and wondered if the special treatment had perhaps something to do with their marked difference in height … What they did have in common, however, was their spirit of perseverance. Joe’s spirituality was down to earth with no frills. I got the impression it somewhat inspired his approach to marathon running in later years - mind over matter. Stickability.
We both took our vows for four consecutive years until neither of us chose to renew them in 1968. I was studying divinity and had quite radical ideas. From what he told me I understand that Joe had become disenchanted. After the summer of 1968, I went to teach in a primary school in Liverpool for a year and went through to Manchester to meet Joe who had started university there. Ours is a long and enduring friendship that continues in the finer realm of what we call the Kingdom.
Keiran Robson
Our memories of Joe as a youngster.
Love Keiran, Joan, Norah and Maureen - the Robson Cousins.
Our memories of a great friendly giant. I always looked on Joe as the older brother I never had he was two years older than me. He was an Usher at my first wedding and he was a guest at my second wedding.
Although we didn’t see each other a great deal, when we did at family do’s we always managed to have a wonderful knowledgeable conversation.
But my memories of Joe and those of my sisters is not the well behaved upright little boy. He was known as a “wholly terror”. Coming from Irish stock we used to go over to Ireland to the farm in Newry for summer holidays. However one year Joe was banned from returning there. One person was heard to say “if that lad comes back here it will be too soon !” Joe had sneaked parrafin into the milk churns and ruin the batch of milk. Believe me though it was not malicious just high spirits.
I went to stay with Joe and auntie Winnie for a week. Must have been about when I was 8 or 9. We used to go every day to Saltwell Park. The Park had a Boating Lake and we spent a lot of time that week on the boats. Joe used to make me row all the time. His excuses were one the one who rowed was in charge of the boat. I found out many years later when I was in the Royal Navy, he who had the helm or rudder was in charge of the boat. His other excuse was more plausible in that Joe suffered very badly with Eczema and he couldn’t row because of his hands. Guess who ended up with all the blisters. He also rounded on me one day. He was very protective of his mother. I had gone and spent some money in another shop and he blew his top because I hadn’t spent it in his mother’s shop. Needless to say I didn’t do that again.
As I said we were all from Irish stock and Grandad when he came over from Ireland worked for Northern Busses in Gateshead. Even when he was elderly he still worked for them but not as a Bus Driver. He used to travel round getting spare parts or taking drivers out to pick up a bus in a little red van. This day he called into the shop and Joe decided he wanted to see what would happen if he let the handbrake off. They managed to stop it before it got to the main road.
Joe was just being a boy and we were all the same. As I said I looked up to him as a big brother and we were friends all our lives. I shall miss him terribly and I know my three sisters will as well. Rest in Peace big guy and we shall meet up again in the future.
Keiran
Barbara
I met Joe at Manchester University in 1969. We were both studying English Literature, though he was a year ahead of me and four years older. He had recently left the Christian Brothers order, in order he told me on our first date, to find a wife and have children. No pressure then. He also gave me a copy of a recent essay he had written entitled: ‘Is Romance an outdated concept?’ in which he argued that indeed it was.
My expectations duly lowered, we embarked on a somewhat turbulent courtship, culminating in an engagement on April 1st 1972 and a wedding in August of that year. We lived for a year in Gateshead in an upstairs terraced flat with an outside netty or toilet, while Joe taught in a rough local comprehensive and I completed my PGCE. We then applied for and got teaching jobs in Germany for two years and our adventures and our family began.
So much for the facts. Joe was from the start an intriguing one-off personality with a roguish sense of humour. His extended family terrified me. They would assemble in his mam’s tiny house, one up from ours in that it did have a bathroom, and the arguments would begin. Coming from a house where children were seen and not heard, this was a culture shock for me. No topic was off limits, but politics was always at the forefront, the majority of his cousins, aunts and uncles leaning to the left. They all talked at once in an almost incomprehensible Geordie accent, the volume escalating in parallel with the consumption of Newcastle Brown Ale. I sat timidly in a corner, unable to latch on to any of the multiple conversations, but I learned a lot about Joe’s sharp wit, intelligence, phenomenal memory and, most importantly, kindness.
We enjoyed our two years in Germany and met many fascinating people there, including a one-armed ex Nazi, Herr Giesicke, who was only too ready to mention the war. We had been advised, with a nod to Basil Fawlty, to steer clear of that topic. We travelled to Berlin once through the corridor, where our train was searched by armed guards with snarling Alsatian dogs. Our two-year tax-free contract culminated in an unplanned but welcome pregnancy and we returned to England in 1975 on a ferry with all our worldly goods packed in seven pieces of luggage, a pram and most importantly a baby of three months, Danny. Joe got a job at the Grammar School in Stafford, now The Chetwynd Centre, bought a house on Wildwood on the same day and a new phase of our lives began.
Madeleine soon followed, born in Burton House Maternity Home, as was Ben two years after that, and seven years later, Nick, this time in the new Stafford District Hospital. By this time Joe was teaching English in Blessed William Howard. Joe was a popular teacher and an excellent father. He loved babies and liked nothing better than putting one of them in a sling and setting off with them all for a walk after he came home from school, to give me some respite. We acquired our first of three dogs, Copper, when Ben was three and thus began Joe’s love of dogs. When our last dog, Nero, died in 2023, Joe was bereft. He never recovered from that loss and it marked the beginning of his health problems.
Golf was his main sporting activity in retirement. Our third house on Castlefields was bought with an eye to its being on the doorstep of Stafford Castle Golf Club, from which he invariably returned with pocketfuls of used and muddy golf balls, which he cleaned in the kitchen sink, much to my irritation. He even trained the dogs to find them. They filled our garage and several sheds.
His other passion was choral singing. He was a member of three local choirs and possessed a beautiful bass voice and perfect pitch. He was gifted with acting skills too, playing a variety of roles in school productions and in musicals at Ingestre Stables. The memory of his entry draped over a huge horse in the role of a dead soldier still makes us all laugh. An ex-colleague, Willy Cotterell, has described him as a ‘comedy genius’.
Joe’s death has left a huge hole in all our lives. It was a privilege to care for him at home in his final weeks. His stoicism has been admirable. May he rest in peace now.
Dan, Madeleine, Ben and Nick
In the weeks since Dad died, one thing that has become clear, is that he meant a great deal to so many people, of whom many join us here today.
For us, having him as our dad was a daily pleasure. He loved to laugh, and he made us laugh too. He had a brilliant, irreverent sense of humour. He loved to tell us stories both as children and as adults. When I was small, he convinced me there were pixies living at the bottom of the garden, and he used to leave notes from them in a little house. Dad was full of imagination, fun, and kindness.
Dad was enthusiastic about and proud of everything we did. He never judged us, and he was never critical. He encouraged and believed in us and was always ready to help in any way he could. He was incredibly proud of his grandchildren and took great delight in their individual, unique qualities. He was especially thrilled that they inherited his love of books, and he would often say that this, more than any academic recognition, would stand them in good stead.
Dad loved to spend time with us travelling around the UK, from St Ives to Iona and sometimes further afield. Often camping in our huge 1970s tent, or a ramshackle trailer tent. More than once, he booked us into the least promising campsite imaginable, perched high upon sand dunes or in a field with no toilet. He would often have forgotten something crucial, most likely his inhaler, but we always had a brilliant time.
Dad was born in Gateshead, son of his beloved mother, Winnie, a shopkeeper, and his father, Jimmy, invalided from the Second World War and who sadly died when Dad was just eleven years old. Although he had no siblings of his own, his nearby cousins, the Brennans, were as good as brothers and sister to him.
Dad shared his love of the Northeast with us throughout his life. In May 2022, Dan, Mad, Nick and I visited Northumberland with Dad. It was a fantastic trip, revisiting the places he had spent time as a child and hearing his stories of being dropped off as an 11-year-old with his cousin and a tent at Newton-by-the-sea. And at any opportunity, he would be straight into the sea for a paddle.
Dad was a positive person, even in adversity. His faith was a huge part of who he was, and it gave him great comfort, especially during his recent illness. It also showed in the way he lived: in his willingness to help people who were less fortunate, in his compassion, and in his deep sense of social justice. He always looked out for the underdog (even Sunderland!).
Every morning, Dad would read the paper from cover to cover. Whilst he was perplexed and dismayed about the polarised state of the world, he was always engaged and keen to understand how things were changing. He was also a man of seemingly endless knowledge. You could be talking to him about any topic, and he would always surprise you with a random fact about it. He would sit watching University challenge, reeling off correct answers to even the most obscure subjects! He put this knowledge to best use in his teaching job. He had a passion and enthusiasm for English Literature which was infectious - he’d deliver the most engaging lessons, often with very little preparation!
Dad had a deep love of music – whether that was singing in his various choirs or whistling along to a James Taylor song in the car. He also loved folk music, and in his early days in Stafford he would often perform at the Eagle pub with Alan Washington alongside him on the harmonica. Unfortunately, smart phones were not around at the time to record these sessions!
He was the least materialistic person we have ever known, and he was happiest doing simple things: walking the dog, especially if it involved finding golf balls, doing his daily crossword, or carefully peeling the stickers and labels off any new item that was handed to him.
Dad also had his own distinctive ways. He’d use phrases like “don’t split your clog” or “dingo’s kidney”, the origins of which were never entirely clear. It is fair to say he was not the world’s best driver, and he was convinced the problem lay with everyone else on the road. For his entire driving life, he made a record of his petrol receipts and mileage in log books that he kept in the car, joking that we should sell them to the RAC when he was gone. And he would happily go out of his way in search of the cheapest petrol—even if that meant driving to Stoke!
Dad could watch and get excited about most sports, especially football, golf, and boxing. He was never shy in offering his opinion on them either. His two favourite teams, Newcastle United and Stafford Rangers, share the famous black-and-white stripes. It felt especially fitting that last year, he got to see his beloved Toon Army finally win their first domestic trophy in 70 years. Many at Marston Road will miss his loud, booming voice willing every shot to go in from the main stand. I will certainly miss those Saturdays with him, going to the match, then heading to the pub afterwards.
Dad was truly one of a kind. He was an inspiration to us all, and we feel so proud to have had him as our loving father. We will miss our Pa enormously, but we will always carry with us his love, his kindness, and his laughter.