Eric’s Tribute
Eric was born on the 25th February 1936 and was the second son of Florence and Archie Coker he had an older brother called Roy and a younger brother called Gerald.
Born in difficult times just before the second world war Eric was brought up with his two brothers in a house on The Vale in Chalfont St Peter.
Eric’s childhood seemed to be one of having fun with his brothers and enjoying various escapades around the village. Playing with bows and arrows, shooting air rifles and having a good time seemed to be the order of the day.
Eric once reared a baby Jackdaw bird which he kept as a pet he trained it to follow him to school and on many occasions it would return home with a shiny coin in its mouth courtesy of one of the school children who would hold the coin up to attract the bird.
Eric met Barbara a local girl who worked in the village newsagent when he was around 17 years of age. He would spend a lot of time in that newsagent browsing the comic section before placing them back on the shelf without buying them. Barbara who was running the shop at the time never questioned his actions and so taking that as a positive Eric plucked up the courage to ask Barbara out on a date.
That was the start of a relationship that lasted over 66 years.
At age18 years National Service beckoned which was a bit of an inconvenience for Eric as he wasn’t able to spend so much time with Barbara. There were several occasions when one of his friends would stand in for him on guard duty while he dashed off home to see Barbara.
As soon as his National Service came to an end Eric proposed to Barbara and on the 16th March 1957 they were standing right here getting married in this very church.
Together they saved up a deposit to buy an old run down Victorian cottage in the centre of the village. The cottage next-door had been owned by Eric’s grandfather and his own father had grown up there. Renovating the house was a labour of love and bringing it back to life took around 18 months to complete.
In 1962 their daughter Lynn was born and Simon followed in 1965 it was always a happy home and they never felt the need to move anywhere else.
Eric worked for a long time in the building trade mostly driving and delivering goods first with Brooks Builders and then for over 20 years with Randals. Lynn and Simon would love to accompany him in the lorry and many a school holiday would be spent sitting beside him in the cab driving back and forth to the gravel pits in Leighton Buzzard.
Eric loved his holidays and would sit for hours looking through the brochures before deciding on a final choice. Eric and Barbara had many holidays in Europe and ventured as far as Australia for 3 weeks in 1990 when their were upgraded to first class. ( Eric always called that his holiday of a lifetime )
On returning from Australia in 1990 Eric was met with redundancy from Randals and a new chapter in his life began. He set up his own Private Hire taxi company and with the help of Barbara grew it into a very successful little business. Simon joined the business a few years later and they had great fun living and working together.
In 1993 Eric became a Grandad with the arrival of Emily followed by Mark 3 years later. Three more grandchildren were to follow Harvey in 2002, Max in 2004 and Ben in 2006.
Eric loved nothing better than spending time with the grandchildren and was never short of conversation with them. He was always to be found chasing them up and down the hallway laughing with them and crawling around the floor with them. He never tired of them and was always pleased to attend a sports day, a football match, a school play or anything else the children cared to do.
Eric enjoyed all sorts of sports, not so much actively but from the comfort of his armchair whenever Barbara gave him permission to do so of course.
The Grand Prix was one of his favourites as was watching football particularly Chelsea with his grandson Harvey. But he was just as happy to watch other sports such as snooker, darts, golf or tennis.
Eric always enjoyed flying in planes it was all part of the fun of the holiday the getting to and from his destination. He once had a private lesson to fly a light aircraft at Denham airfield and also enjoyed a couple of hours flying a 747 Jumbo on a British Airways simulator at Heathrow.
Eric carried on working until he was nearly 70 and then gradually eased himself into retirement which allowed him more time to spend with his family.
From his mid twenties Eric suffered with a rare form of rheumatoid arthritis which plagued him his whole life. He was on permanent medication and was often in pain yet he never once complained choosing to suffer in silence instead. It often limited what he could do physically and doctors even told him he would be in a wheelchair by the time he was 30 years old. Not something Barbara or Eric wanted to hear whilst planning for their own family.
Eric had a love of animals and always had family pets either a cat or dog in the family home. I think the animals could sense a kindness and calmness about him and would always be found either curled up on his lap or at his feet. Rex the Border Collie used to go to work with Eric for many years sitting in the cab next to him. One day on returning home from work without Rex by his side Lynn and Simon were distraught to find out that Rex had been lost in one of the gravel pits in Leighton Buzzard and after searching for hours Eric had to leave without him. But before leaving Eric rubbed his jacket on the ground where he had gone missing. The next day Eric went back and Rex was laying down on the exact same spot where Eric had rubbed his jacket. How relieved we all were to have Rex back home safe and sound if a little hungry.
On the 16th March 2017 Eric and Barbara celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary quite an achievement these days and a congratulatory card from the Queen sat on the mantlepiece for weeks to come.
Sadly on the 17th June this year after 66 years together Eric’s beloved wife Barbara passed away after a short illness in hospital which was a devastating blow for Eric and the whole family.
From that day on Eric was never left alone spending every night of his remaining life in the company of his family. He was so easy to look after and we all cherished the time he spent with us. In August we even managed to take him on a short break to Southampton to stay with friends. The highlight of that trip was a couple of hours sailing in a yacht with friends with Eric taking the helm for some of the journey. The funniest part was actually getting him in and out of the yacht balancing him on a stepladder on the end of the jetty was quite scary but he loved every minute of it.
At the end of this year Eric’s health unfortunately took a turn for the worse and after a couple of short stays in hospital he passed away peacefully in his sleep in on the 9th December.
For a man of 84 who was supposed to be wheelchair bound at 30 he did extremely well and led a very full and happy life.
Eric lived in the village the whole of his life and was known affectionately by so many people. A very contented man his philosophy on life was always to treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself.
Eric was one of a kind and will be greatly missed by his children, grandchildren and everyone else who was privileged to know him.