John Young slips the surly bonds of earth

The great and the good of the brewing world and hundreds of friends came together last Thursday to bid farewell to Young's late chairman and industry...

The great and the good of the brewing world and hundreds of friends came together last Thursday to bid farewell to Young's late chairman and industry legend 'Mr John'

Carved into the ivory crook of the Bishop of Southwark's crosier is the Lamb of God, though to the partisan congregation at the memorial service for the late chairman of Young's brewery it looked remarkably like a ram.

Ten weeks after the death of John Allen Young, when coincidentally the final beer was mashed at his Ram Brewery in Wandsworth High Street, the legendary brewer was commemorated by the industry he adored in a place he would have deemed most appropriate.

Southwark Cathedral, a mile or so down-river from his beloved brewery, is built on the site of an eighth-century hostelry. And it was there, where the Thames rivermen once drank, that the beer makers gave devotions last Thursday for the man who had treated brewing like a religion.

In the early afternoon gloom those for whom alcohol is a way of life threaded their way to the ancient church, hidden from the river by office blocks and fenced in by the railway and Borough Market, to remember their lifeblood's maker.

Three-quarters of an hour before the service was due to start the nave was already full and the north and south transepts were filling-up quickly. By the time Mozart's Fantasia kicked-in the Dean was forced to announce that there were so many people who wished to pay their respects to the grand old man of real ale that the service sheets would have to be shared.

In all, 1,200 attended. John Young would have been flattered.

"The Beerage" of course had turned out in force. Anthony Fuller, chairman of Young's great west London rivals Fuller's was there, as was Richard Fuller. So too was Robert Neame of the Kentish brewers Shepherd Neame, and son Jonathan, David Woodhouse, Fergus McMullen, and the Lees-Jones brothers.

There was a delegation from Scottish Courage, including Roy Boulter, and six former National Chairmen of Camra. And there was also a score of sad-eyed landlords to whom John Young had been the perfect patron, and a beehive of soberly-dressed barmaids that had pulled him pints over the years.

Lighting-up the business suits and blazers of the lamenters was the Mayor of Wandsworth in full regalia, a Pearly King and Queen (Old Kent Road branch) in Cockney kit and the Young dynasty trimmed with expensive fur and shabby chic rhinestones.

In fact, by the time the Bishop of Southwark followed his choir down the aisle in his mitre and richly embroidered cloak while holding what appeared to be a representation of the Young's company logo atop of his crosier, it seemed as if the Almighty himself was in attendance.

Certainly John Young's great grandniece Alice Young's reading, taken from the Gospel of St John, which told the story of the wedding at Galilee when Jesus turned water into fine wine seemed an appropriate biblical endorsement of the late brewer. Particularly as the Bishop, the Rt Rev Dr Thomas Butler, said the message of the miracle was actually about "making the good even better", something "Mr John" spent a lifetime attempting to achieve with his ordinary and special bitters.

Ian Wilcockson, former Young's tenanted trade director and John Young's longest-serving working colleague, in a moving tribute to the charismatic brewer, said that the 85-year-old Cambridge-educated Renaissance man - he was a musician, fighter pilot, businessman and philanthropist - was "irreplaceable, irrepressible and sometimes impossible".

And when John Young's brother Thomas, 78, bravely hobbled on sticks to the front of the church to read "Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings..." from High Flight by Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr there was a tear in many a drinking man's eye.

After the service the congregation filed out to a marquee adjacent to the cathedral that had, by chance, been erected immediately above the ancient site where Southwark's 1,300-year-old tavern had once stood. There were white porcelain cups of tea for the dainty and Champagne taken by the dignitaries.

The rest headed for the beer rack at the end of the tent where eight barrels of Young's finest ale waited to be drunk in Mr John's memory.

Through the open tent flap behind the raft of barrels stood a team of four black Shire horses harnessed to a brown liveried box van (so-called because it was used to carry the boxes of bottled beer).

The horses, which were John Young's great love, were reminiscent of the soldier's tradition of the riderless horse with military boots facing backwards in the stirrups - a symbol of a fallen soldier looking back on his troops one last time. On this occasion it was an empty dray that represented the leader.

As the November light faded and the final pints were drawn, the memory of John Allen Young lingered on as the well-oiled drifted away into London's orange sodium.

It had been a fine farewell to a unique figure and yet ironically it was at the start of the day, in the pub not the church, where the greatest salute to Mr John took place.

The brewery's senior executives, including new chairman Christopher Sandland and former chief executive Pat Read, had agreed to meet up before the service at the Wheatsheaf, a traditional Young's pub in Borough Market.

By 1pm both the narrow public bar and equally narrow saloon bar were packed with ruddy-faced men with salt and pepper hair in dark suits. Every one of them seemed to be talking about the late chairman. Snippets could be heard about John Young's dressing-up, of his wit and kindnesses and how it was he who had invented the term "real ale".

Above the noise his catchphrase "Oh I say" could frequently be heard being mimicked.

And there was one other memorable, unspoken and unwitting tribute to Mr John - every man Jack in the Wheatsheaf was tucking into a straight pint glass of Young's Ordinary bitter.

Attendees

Christopher Brain, Brains; Richard and Christopher Lees-Jones, JW Lees-Jones; Barrie Gilham, Yaser Martini, Bob Whittle, Fleurets; Anthony Fuller, Richard Fuller, John Roberts, Simon Emeny, Fullers; Mr and Mrs Fred West, Wadworths; Robert and Jonathan Neame, Shepherd Neame; Piers Thompson, St Austell; David Woodhouse, H&W; James Clarke, Hook Norton; David Welch, Ringwood; Rupert Thompson, Refresh; Paul Nunny, Cask Marque; Rob Hayward, BBPA; Nick Bish, ALMR; Tim Hampson, British Guild of Beer Writers; Kate Oppenheim, BSkyB; Mike Benner and John Cryne, Camra, plus five former national chairmen; Lord Sharman, former Young's director and ex-chairman KPMG; Sir Geoffrey Little, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; sister Elizabeth Davies, John Young Ward, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. And many other dignitaries and friends.

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds. And done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of; wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sun-lit silence. Hovering there

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air;

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,

Where never lark nor even eagle flew;