Remembering Brian

It’s hard to remember the time when Brian Howgate wasn’t Treasurer of the Battlefield Society. He took over from Craig Fletcher very soon after the Society’s foundation and for well over twenty years managed the money and advised on its management, through periods of growth and the long period of fundraising and the construction of the Arrivall sculpture. He was always there if advice, or an urgent cheque, was needed. His methods were not of the twenty first century, but you wouldn’t expect that of Brian.

He died on 16th October, peacefully in the bosom of his family, relaxing in his favourite chair exactly as he had wanted. Coroners of the nineteenth century would have described it as ‘by the visitation of God’.

Brian was a money man primarily, with a background in banking (the sort which Captain Mainwaring did) and teaching. Apart from an obsession with getting us all to appreciate the finer points of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 his interests were wide, eclectic and completely unconnected with finance.

At a cerebral level, he read philosophy magazines, was a leading light in the U3A History of Art group, a trad jazz fan and shared an interest in opera with Ruth. This latter meant frequent trips to Italian opera houses, with inevitable associated adventures or mishaps, like only booking one seat at La Scala in Milan. It makes it all the stranger that he was also a great fan of the folk song ‘Whose Pigs are These’, and liked nothing more than encouraging the singing of it after a drink or two.

On a less cerebral level, his interest in woodwork (making sawdust, Ruth says) led to him making a whole string of trebuchets, but his lack of interest in structural principles meant that they all failed after a couple of uses, though he was intent on having another attempt to try out at the next Medieval Festival. The trebuchets were not alone. Most of his creations seemed to suffer from similar flaws, but he was never deterred.

His devotion to the Society’s Exhibition tent and stall at the Medieval Festival saw him spending long hours there selling things and discussing things. He was a main-stay.

Brian’s joke-telling was an art form. His speciality was bad jokes. He often forgot the punch-line, but when he remembered it he would pause and go into paroxysms of silent laughter so great that he couldn’t continue. None of this affected his desire to share his repertoire.

His fitness was never great and diabetes brought all sorts of related complications to his life, which he happily discussed. Hearing loss, and a long succession of hearing aids, must have been a trial. It certainly was to those he telephoned with complicated questions and then complained about their poor diction. He had heart problems and foot problems, but these things seemed to define Brain, who just adapted, and lived with one more disability Under cover of the isolation which covid brought, though, he became suddenly frail. That was no deterrent to an autumn trip abroad, to view another new landscape. This time a river cruise in Germany. He came home with a German Zimmer frame as a souvenir. It was to be his last adventure.

I have lots of fond memories of Brian, from his reaction to the food on offer at an Atherstone pub on a Society trip to look at a Bosworth theory to his incredulity at the huge attributes of a boar we observed whilst visiting a farm shop café on a pig farm somewhere along the Fosse Way on the way to Towton.  

Brian was a friend who was always there, to discuss and debate all manner of things, both trite and profound. His wit and wisdom will always be with me.