RABBI DR SIDNEY BRICHTO z"l Thorne Addyman Prayers at Liberal Jewish Synagogue 25 January 2009

Sidney, my grandfather has always been a great influence on me.

I have many memories of Sidney which involve his love, generosity, knowledge, joyfulness and more recently whiskey sours. Here are just a few of them.

Sidney giving me advice, either on the phone or in person, which I would take in whether it was an intellectual lecture or just useful life information.

Sidney arguing about his football team Arsenal and how they were doing and how I felt Liverpool were so much better.

Discovering Sidney’s cocktail recipes in his drinks cabinet, I confronted him and together we made about 5 different drinks. We both decided that our favourite was the whiskey sour and we sat down with our drinks and a cigar and discussed life and what I wanted to be.

And a less recent memory, my family drove down from Wales to Sidney and Cathryn’s house having not seen them for a few months. Sidney seemed overwhelmed at how grown-up I had become and began to cry. I found this very funny.

Sidney was always a very proud grandfather, he always showed huge amounts of love even if I was in the wrong, which didn’t happen too often. When I entered the teenage years and caused occasional family disputes, mum would quickly be on the phone to Sidney who would speak to me and help solve the problem with words of wisdom. He always seemed to see a light at the end of a tunnel.

I felt Sidney was a man who always wanted to be doing things, he didn’t want his age to get in the way of his everyday life.

I am going to hugely miss my grandfather and I know that everyone else in the family and all his friends will do too.  Even though Sidney has passed, I feel that the love, warmth and generosity he gave will last for the rest of my life.

I shall work on my techniques of cutting cigars preparing whiskey sours in hope that I may one day pass the same skills on to MY grandson.