Anthony Spender died 6th September 2024. Beloved husband of Mary, loving father of James and Richard, father-in-law of Vera and Elizabeth, and grandfather of Jack, Tommy and Madeline. Son, James (C2 1987-92), shares the obituary from Anthony’s funeral.
Anthony Platt Spender (PR 1953-57), was born on 5th October 1939 in Alexandria, Egypt to Noel Platt and Rev Alan Spender, OBE, a Naval chaplain.
If he were here now, he’d be heckling from the front row with calls to “get on with it”! Or swapped it for a Swahili version! Due to the Mediterranean submarine peril my father continued to develop a lifelong tan in Egypt before returning to England via South Africa.
His brother Peter was born in Egypt in 1941, while little sister Marion arrived in Hampshire, in 44. While they could not be in the same room for long before an argument broke out, he always tried to be a good big brother to a fractured family.
They moved regularly with his father’s chaplaincy and Dad counted 7 homes in 5 years
(or more when telling it in the pub). They were in Risby in Suffolk when Dad’s father died aged 41 when he was just 13. It was a difficult time for him as a young teenager.
As the son of a clergyman, Dad went to Marlborough College where he was in Preshute house from 53 to 57. He discovered a life-long passion for woodwork, photography, friends such as Tim Ashfield, John Manser and Bill Buxton, played cricket and the chapel organ.
Dad was a gregarious, kind and generous man. He was interested in people and would often excitedly describe people he had recently met and their strengths and virtues. He was an early-riser, and you could count on finding him downstairs in a dressing gown with a mug of coffee, listening to the radio and treating Plato the cat to Greek yoghourt.
Perhaps due to the sibling rivalries Dad strongly believed in fairness and honesty and he lived by the Stock Exchange motto “Dictum meum pactum”, my word is my bond. A lifelong Conservative, supporter of fair play and the under dog (and Ipswich Town).
Always punctual, tidy, resourceful, Dad was very supportive – he sold the shotguns he had inherited from his father to buy my target rifle that enabled me to make the UK Under 19 cadets team to Canada. If you had a problem he was always there to help.
He loved to tease people and was always delighted when he was met with equal humour or someone “threw the ball back” as he liked to say… as his sons, being the target of his teasing for our entire lives, has made us completely bullet proof.
His lifelong desire was to provoke a surprised reaction from his younger son, Richard, known to be laidback to the point of being horizontal.
From Marlborough, Dad was apprenticed to Pye radio in Cambridge extending his practical skills to wiring. As this was leading nowhere, he decided to try the City. Luckily for Dad, his step-brother had decided to emigrate to Australia, which left a vacancy in the family firm of stockjobbers Francis & Praed. He moved to Queen’s Gate, Kensington, and started on the Stock Exchange floor as a Blue Button stockjobber, rising to become a Partner in 1968. He was with Akroyd and Smithers through the 70s.
In 1967 Dad had moved to “the sticks” and bought 10 Edenhurst Avenue in Fulham between Putney Bridge tube that took him to the City and the Hurlingham club where he played tennis and squash.
Dad credited his professional success to his ability to do mental arithmetic, quickly calculating bond yields and prices in his head and he had an intuitive feel for the market – be it bonds, property or classic cars. He did well and was proud to be interviewing and managing people older than himself in his twenties. In 1980 he joined the Scottish stockbroking firm of Wood Mackenzie and became a Partner. We can remember him bringing his young family on the overnight train to the annual sports day of the Firm in Edinburgh. The firm grew quickly: By the time it was sold to Hill Samuel, just before Big Bang in1986, WoodMac was handling 9 per cent of the trades on the London Stock Exchange, more than any other stockbroking firm at the time.
In 1991 at a time of very low trading in the City, Dad yearned to spend more time with his family, by that time in Wiltshire. He took the bold step of retiring from the City at the age of 49. We moved to Breach House and quickly made many friends as we became immersed in Marlborough life. We moved on from families with young teenagers, to attending the summer school every year and making more friends in the area.
As a second career he fell in with commercial property developers, starting with a sandwich factory in Calne then collecting office buildings around Swindon and Bristol. Dad never completely retired. He thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of business, chatting and catching up over lunch and making friends wherever he went.
Mum and Dad met at a skiing reunion party given by the Spiers. Mum was immediately attracted to the man with the house just outside, and membership of the Hurlingham club! Dad, Mum has always thought, was overjoyed to find someone equally happy to watch Match of the Day!
Dating a girl with four older brothers all over 6 ft might have been daunting but Dad found himself very welcome and always appreciated how much part of the family he was made to feel.
Mum and Dad were married in the crypt of St Paul’s cathedral in February 1973 and honeymooned in Sri Lanka.
While Dad was an early-riser, Mum enjoys staying up late and breakfasting late. Dad’s punctuality and drive to get on with things contrasted with mum’s slightly more relaxed time keeping – Very different characters, they complimented each other perfectly and showed us how love could overcome all impediments in over 50 years of marriage.
In recent years, as Dad’s mobility declined, and his cameos in ambulances and hospitals increased, he leaned more and more on Mum, and hugely appreciated her love and support.
Some of my brother and I’s earliest memories of our Dad are of waving him off to work from the top floor windows at Edenhurst Avenue as he stood waiting for the district line from Putney Bridge station.
During these early years bringing up small children in London, Mum and Dad would ensure that one day of every weekend would be a family day. This could be a day at the Hurlingham playground or pool, trips to see family outside London, or speeding down the Thames in an inflatable dinghy called Mr Busy. I doubt there were many other Fulham houses with a boat moored to a lamp-post on the pavement outside.
Dad had innumerable interests.
He was very practical, good at DIY, and making and repairing in wood or metal. He made the furniture for the shared cottage in Brittany himself – driven over piece-by-piece on P&O or Brittany ferries on the top of the car. After we moved to Lockeridge in 1986, he continued to make smaller pieces like my brother’s shooting box, and various made-to-measure tables and beds for his house in London.
He took up clock restoration, studying at the Horological Institute and began collecting marine chronometers. The wood workshop changed over to metalwork. The clocks’ accuracy improved, as he did at restoring them with Cosby’s help, but for a period, the hour was marked by a cacophony of clocks going off sporadically at intervals for 20 minutes!
Dad used his retirement to travel the world. Something he’d been unable to do as a younger man with a demanding job and a young family. To us, it seemed like he enjoyed planning the trips almost more than actually going on them. Every trip was meticulously planned with clothes laid out in the spare room weeks in advance.
He visited some of the most far-flung parts of the world (Antarctica, Madagascar, Fiji and the Galapagos Islands) as well as the Middle East, India, Australia, New Zealand, Southern Africa and South America.
Sometimes he was accompanied on these trips by his wife, sometimes by intrepid friends but inevitably he’d return with colourful additions to his already colourful wardrobe and a fascinating array of music. Mum drew the line at the repeated playing of a Buddhist gongs CD.
He loved curry, cinema evenings with friends, and had permanent FOMO although he wouldn’t have had a clue what the acronym meant (Fear Of Missing Out for those trying to guess). Dad loved to be involved.
This extended to his use of the internet and social media. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Dad immediately took to the internet and kept eBay busy, tweeted from his Facebook account, joined Instagram, and friended the younger generations. Being unable to find pictures that he’d seen on Instagram a few days later always puzzled him, as did many aspects of modern social media, but he enjoyed trying to work out how it all worked. The fact that he signed off all his emails to his sons with LOL was something we both loved.
Which brings me to his other love. His love of cars…. Specifically buying cars.
He must have bought over 50 cars. There would always be a justification for why there was something lacking with the current car… Or on one memorable occasion, where his ludicrously low offer was accepted by a dealer to his great surprise. Sometimes our mother only knew a new car had arrived because it changed colour! During an illness in recent years, a sign of recovery was Dad ordering a new model from his hospital bed.
For all his classic cars he loved fettling – that’s to say pottering about, tinkering with the latest car in the garage. But almost more importantly, the first thing he would do on buying a new classic car was to join the club. Spotmog the Morgan car club, the Rolls-Royce enthusiasts club or his latest, the Bentley Drivers Club. The clubs provided a great opportunity to make new friends and go on wonderful trips all over Europe with Mum. He hosted a gathering of Bentley drivers very recently and made many close friends over the years, many of whom are here today.
Dad experienced family instability caused by the loss of his own father when he was growing up, in contrast he gave us love, support and security. He taught us how to be a devoted and supportive father, something that, now I’m a father, I see even more clearly. And a father, who, as anybody who spent any time with him would know, was incredibly proud of his family. He was always there for us, and we loved him dearly.
