Mervyn's Funeral
There were three Eulogies given at Mervyn’s funeral last Friday.
The one below was given by Kate Taylor, Chairman of the Society as the third reading, covering his involvement with Mercia. The others will be uploaded when available.
Mervyn Gould
Mervyn burst into Mercia Cinema Society at a committee meeting on 13 March 1993. It was a time of some difficulty for the Society as we were without a Secretary. Mervyn wrote to me offering to take on the role. The Committee met swiftly co-opted him, and gratefully accepted his offer. I see from the Minutes – which Mervyn wrote – that he thanked the meeting for its confidence in him and hoped it would not be misplaced. Of course his own confidence was such that he had arranged the meeting himself at the department of English and Drama here at Loughborough University and was full of plans for the Society’s future.
But our confidence was not misplaced. Mervyn swiftly became synonymous with the Society. He had huge ambitions for it. You were never sure, as he bounced and flounced his way through our work for the next sixteen years, whether he was more a thespian or an academic. But he was a stickler for quality both in research and in presentation. He took over the design and preparation of our then rather cheap and cheerful quarterly Bioscopes, and turned them into excellent journals, well designed, rich in quality. He stopped us producing photocopied, comb-bound books, and set the trend for well-written, well-illustrated and well printed works. He wrote some himself. Just a few days before his death, he was delighted to receive a belated but laudatory review of his book on Boston, Spalding, and the Aspland Howdens. He cajoled others to extend and write up their research, and took the greatest care and delight in typesetting their work.
Without a grumble – or at least an audible one – he undertook the tedious donkey-work of arranging meetings, sending out agendas, and, of course, four times a year stuffing envelopes and mailing out the Bioscopes. He also – and far more reflective of his calibre – arranged a number of conferences on picture house history in the Society’s name. And he loved indexing. He was, simply, tireless in his dedication to the Society. Practically, he was the Society.
Such was his contribution that he had no difficulty in persuading an annual meeting to change his title from that of Secretary, to Administrator.
He did not suffer gladly those whose standards of research or literacy were inadequate for the status he demanded of the Society. He could be vituperative , volatile and dogmatic; he was meticulous and talented; he could also be wonderfully kind and generous. He made the Society a beacon in the field of picture-house research and publishing.
Alas those delicious Christmas puddings which he made each year for his friends have been eaten, but his brilliant books remain. We are proud that they bear the imprint of the Society.
We shall not see his like again.