Alan J Cowcher 1951-2009

It was with great shock and deep sadness that I learned of the sudden death of Alan J Cowcher, a friend I had known since school days (from 1960 in fact). He was a person who, like myself, had a rather narrow focus and range of talent. My first memories of him are of his interest in two things: car number plates and clocks. Providence smiled on him when in adult life he secured a job in the car licensing department of Norfolk County Council, a place that could no doubt make use of his ability to recall car number plates and also his ability to add up in his head at lightning speed. (Compared to myself).

Alan’s regular, reliable and faithful nature in many ways found metaphorical expression in his other chief interest, an interest in clocks, an interest I shared. I remember him constructing a Meccano clock (see above) when he was young, a construction that lay bare the mechanism of clockwork. In later life Alan joined a clock club and repaired and restored traditional clocks in his spare time; he did a excellent job with two of my own clocks.

The home in which he lived with his parents, was quiet and tranquil. My memory of entering the hall of his house was that its peaceful ambiance resounded only to the gentle but firm tick of a grandfather clock displaying the phases of the moon above its dial. This spoke of a regular world, comprehensible and predictable and this was matched by the routine of the household itself. Like me Alan had the good fortune to be born into a stable and generally happy family. Alan and his family were part of my upbringing too. His was the second home I experienced, along with my own, where the regular routine of the household was surrounded by an ordered, well stocked and well kept garden. These were formative experiences for me and the help inculcate the feeling that the cosmos was a truly comprehensible and benign place! It made me feel glad to be alive; there was work to be done probing that cosmos; like a clock it could be disassembled and put back together again. That outlook has never left me, thanks in part to Alan and his home. And yet as his death shows the unexpected occasionally breaks in with evidence that our context is in turn part of a larger context.