John Maples
The House suffered the loss of another member at the weekend with the death of Lord Maples. He was a former MP and minister and had done notable work for the Conservative Party under David Cameron in helping ensure that the party’s candidate base was considerably widened. He thus contributed to the diversity of the party’s new intake of MPs at the last election.
As the Guardian obituary recorded, he worked at party headquarters with Shireen (later Baroness) Ritchie. As readers know, Baroness Ritchie died recently. She had a desk in our office. So too did John Maples, so his loss is felt especially deeply. He was a charming individual, universally well liked. His cancer was only recently diagnosed and he was attending the House until a few weeks ago. The office is somewhat bereft without him.
With deepest respect, and to the sub-topic of “cancer”, some forms of which, notably smokers-lung-cancer, show up unbearably painful too late to be remedied
“by the time the sufferer goesw to the Doctor it is already too late”.
“Superimmunity” by Dr Paul Pearsall
addresses the more everyday individual-psychology and human-intercourse elements of (on the one extreme) “cold” diseases such as cancer, and “hot” diseases such as heart-attack (at the other extreme).
Incidentally, in “The New Health Revolution” by Ross Horne you will find evidence that the degenerative “diseases”, over 400 of them, are in truth but “synptoms and signs” of one underlying compound-disease,
“lipotoxemia”.
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When I see such obituaries as this one for Lord Maples I become mindful again of the message sent home from our temporarily ‘forgotten’ troops battling horribly in the Far East during WW2
“tell them
‘we gave our today that you might have a tomorrow'”.
John Maples appears to have been, for some considerable time, ‘giving his today that we might have a tomorrow’.
I do feel glad, however, that he was all the while a charming and well-liked figure, up there.
Which Peers are left in your office?
Is that the principle of the more you get involved with it, the nearer you are to your very own obituary?
Lord Norton,
My condolences on your loss. There are times and seasons when our lives are more marked by death than others. It sees this is true for you and I both just now…
I suppose his family is grateful in a small way that he reached the elevation of the chamber as te honor is not given posthumously. He may have felt a touch of appreciation for that fact as well. Though clearly one might wish not to be so pressed for time.