A private funeral service for Ian Wooldridge will be held in his home village in Hampshire. A memorial service will be organised for later in the year.
No flowers please, but the family has requested that any donations should be sent to the London Ambulance Benevolent Fund, LAS HQ, 220 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8SD.
Still today, as Michael Henderson puts it in The Guardian, “the torrent of praise runs like a river” for Wooldridge.
Henderson continues:
The apparent effortlessness of his prose sprang from an abiding concern for language. Whereas other sportswriters of his generation looked towards Hemingway, often with damaging consequences, Wooldridge’s literary hero was a different kind of craftsman. His advice to young journalists was simple: “Read Evelyn Waugh. Start with A Little Learning and see what a master can do with words”.
Read a brief appreciation of Woolers’ life and work, and post your own messages, by clicking here.