For me, this is a family affair. Merrick was what I think is described as my first cousin once removed, or it might be twice removed. Anyway, my grandmother was a Bates and was the sister of Merrick‘s Grandfather.
The Bates came from Liverpool and were a spirited family. Merrick‘s grandfather, Dr Henry Baker Bates, was a GP in the St Helens District of Liverpool. My grandmother said that he added the forename Baker because the double barrel enabled him to charge his patients more.
Merrick‘s father, Eric, succeeded Merrick‘s grandfather as a GP in Saint Helens. Eric was well known for driving around Liverpool in a Rolls- Royce. Merrick told me that on one occasion when Eric visited his aunt, my aforesaid grandmother, in Lytham St Annes in his Rolls-Royce, my grandmother ended the visit by looking out of the window and saying, “You had better go now, Eric. You mustn’t keep the taxi waiting“.
I love to speculate what my grandmother would have said about Merrick having his Memorial Service in St Paul’s Cathedral.
Merrick and I were not close as children. He was at school at Shrewsbury and I went to Harrow. We met up with each other when Merrick, having married Chrystal, the sister of my precociously clever Harrow classmate, Duncan Goodacre, came with her to live in Dulwich, south London, where my wife and I had also settled. Merrick had joined the foreign office, and I had joined the Treasury, and so thereafter our paths crossed periodically, both socially and professionally.
No doubt because of our shared North country background, Merrick and I had a common sense of humour. Merrick told me that, when he was consul general in Tokyo, he had the task of meeting former Prime Minister, Edward Heath, and being driven with him to the centre of the city.
This was an unenviable assignment. Edward Heath was notoriously difficult to have conversations with. He was addicted to long periods of silence, which were uncomfortable for his interlocutors.
Merrick racked his brains for a topic that might occupy the journey. Then he had a brainwave. When they were settled into the car, Merrick said “I believe my cousin Robin Butler was your private secretary“. Heath’s reaction was simply to roll his eyes and say, “That fellow“. End of conversation and Merrick had to search for some other subject.
In later years, when Merrick and Chrystal were living in Northamptonshire, Merrick and I most frequently came together on the walks instigated by Nicholas Barber, although Jill and I also enjoyed the almanac of their year which Merrick and Chrystal circulated to friends at Christmas. As fellow walkers will attest, sharing a walk and a chat with Merrick was always a delight.
Merrick was an unconventional diplomat. His father was known for his care for working people in Saint Helens in his Rodney Street surgery and Providence Hospital. Perhaps inheriting this gene, Merrick was known for befriending ordinary people in the countries in which he worked and forming lasting connections with them. He carried this into his retirement.
In retirement, he not only benefited his local area and charities such as St John ambulance, Street Pastors, and the Prison Fellowship, he also formed individual relationships with people who needed friendship, which he maintained by correspondence and in other ways over many years. He had a personal goodness which few of us can match, and he leavened this with a wry sense of humour.
I am proud of my family connection with him and, like those here today, I miss him.
Robin Butler
