 |
| Part of the display at Tony's memorial |
Veteran psychical researcher
Anthony Donald Cornell died on 10 April 2010.
His memorial service was held at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, on 20
June, on what would have been his 87th birthday. The event, ably organised by Ali Cornell and
Tony’s sons David, Martin and John, was very moving. We had reminiscences from Alan Gauld, who had
known Tony for almost sixty years, and carried out investigations with him
(‘Tony as I knew him’), and Bernard Carr, a member of the Cambridge University
Society for Psychical Research (CUSPR) in the late 1960s/early 70s, and a firm
family friend ever since (‘Tony Cornell: Psychical researcher, intrepid
investigator and mischievous spirit’).
Both Alan and Bernard are of course senior figures in the London-based
Society for Psychical Research (SPR).
David Cornell spoke about his father’s role - extremely underrated - as
a councillor active in planning matters in Cambridge. We sang For Those in Peril on the Sea,
which tied in with Tony’s wartime naval career, and there were some touching readings. The chapel was packed with his friends, and
while the mood was one of sadness, there was much humour, to reflect Tony’s
irrepressible extravert nature.
Along with a buffet
afterwards, we were treated to a slide show and display of photographs and
articles on Tony’s life and manifold activities, covering his schooldays, his
naval service, his travels, his politics, and his psychical research, not to
mention his fondness for dressing in silly costumes and headgear. There was also a loop of his appearances in
television programmes discussing ghost hunting, though alas not my favourite,
mentioned by Alan, in which Tony set out to test G W Lambert’s ‘underground
water’ hypothesis to account for poltergeist phenomena. It featured Tony, hanging out of an upstairs
window while the house was shaken to pieces round him, shouting out that the
poltergeist effects, which he argued should have occurred if the theory was
valid, had not happened. (Tony’s mad antics, before the days of risk
assessments, were great television but of course the sorts of vibrations
Lambert suggested were responsible for poltergeists were of a different kind to
those produced in this demonstration.)
Obituaries of Tony will appear in the SPR Journal and Fortean
Times in due course which will describe his life, and particularly his
significant contributions to psychical research, but in the meantime I want to
record some personal thoughts of my own.
I first met
Tony in 1990, when I was co-opted onto the SPR Council. Eventually I moved to
Cambridge and we lived quite close to each other, so I would regularly pop
round and spend a couple of hours drinking coffee and eating cake while telling him bits of SPR news and listening to
his views on the state of psychical research, notably the lack of cases these
days, the absence of decent photographic evidence for the paranormal, and
generally whether we were all wasting our time.
I thoroughly enjoyed these visits, mainly because he had a vast amount
of experience in the subject he was willing to impart, but also because he was
astonishingly indiscreet and had an amazing store of anecdotes, both about
psychical research and his life. We
would chat, often with the indoor rabbits underfoot, and I would look out of
the window at the birds, mostly feral pigeons, and squirrels in the
garden. He bought seed in large sacks
and must have spent a fortune on feeding wildlife over the years (including
foxes as we were told at his memorial).
I spent a lot of time with
him for an extended period helping to clear decades of possessions and rubbish
from the damp-riddled basement of his house in Victoria Street, venue for the
CUPSR, and immortalised in the large number of interviews that Tony gave for
both television and print media. I
decided that Tony was himself a squirrel of the first order, partly because he
had accumulated so much junk over the years, and partly because he remained
reluctant to part with a lot of it. I did many trips to the tip with enormous bags
of rubbish, but even so I would regularly say, “shall I throw this out Tony?”,
and he would frown and reply, “no, it could come in useful,” even though he
must have realised it probably never would.
These visits were particularly noteworthy for the drive there and back
in his car. After his stroke he had
limited mobility in one arm and although he continued to drive, he tended to
disregard the road markings. At
Mitcham’s Corner in particular he would always be on the wrong side of
the line and would swoop across at the last moment to take the left turn,
occasionally prompting a vigorous honking behind us.
One of my regrets is not
having been around during the glory days of the CUSPR. Those Sunday evenings in Tony’s basement
sound as if they were great fun, even though Tony and his colleagues were
conducting serious research. Tony was always disappointed that there was
insufficient interest among the university’s undergraduates to keep CUSPR
going. Another disappointment was that
his book Investigating the Paranormal
was not distributed as widely as its importance merited. Hopefully now that the rights are in other
hands this will be rectified and marketing will be more vigorous. Who knows, we might one day even see a second
edition with the bits that Helix Press cut out the first time round reinstated.
Sadly I never accompanied
Tony on a proper investigation; the closest I came was when we went to The Bell
at Thetford to participate in the making of a television programme for a series
called Ghosthunters. I was there with my local group, and we tried
to simulate a vigil while the room was bathed in bright light aimed in from a
cherry picker parked outside. I also had
to describe Tony’s SPIDER (Spontaneous Psychophysical Incident Data
Electronic Recorder) to camera after Tony had given the
background to the case. Alas while
Tony’s contribution remained the rest never made it into the programme. (Rather
curiously, as I was typing this the magazine produced by the Association for
the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena arrived, and on opening it the page
fell open at an article by Lionel Fanthorpe describing his recent visit to The
Bell. No mention of Tony though.)
The overarching theme of the
memorial, which tied together his various interests, was his essential decency. In his public life he always tried to do the
right thing. David Cornell’s account of
his father’s tenacity as chair of the Council’s planning committee – not you
would have thought the world’s most exciting topic, but as Tony was involved it
was bound to be lively – was punctuated with “…and then there was an almighty
row.” Tony did not curry favour, and
although a staunch Conservative, was not a party hack. That could be why,
despite his long service to the City, he never obtained the gong which those of
lesser achievement often receive. He was
willing to challenge developers and fellow Councillors if he thought they were
in the wrong, and Cambridge is the richer for it. In particular, as David pointed out, Tony was
the inspiration for the Cambridge Science Park, an achievement of which he was
enormously proud, but for which he never received his due recognition. It was also this tenacity which led to his
long tenure (over twenty years) as Hon Treasurer of the SPR during some
financially difficult times.
I last saw Tony two days
before he died. He had come home from
Addenbrooke’s and was installed in his room at the front of the house, in a
peaceful road with the sun streaming in and spring flowers in the garden. Ali said that I could hold his hand, but I
was reluctant as holding hands with Tony was not something I would normally
have done. He was heavily sedated and
although he was conscious I didn’t know if he could understand what I was
saying to him. While Ali made coffee I
told him some news about the SPR, and mentioned the names of people I knew
annoyed him, hoping that doing so would engage his attention. If nothing else I thought that he would at
least know he was not alone. Shortly
afterwards the nurse came and I felt I was in the way and should leave. Before doing so I did hold Tony’s hand
briefly and said goodbye. I told Ali I
would like to come back to see him again but he died before I could.
After the memorial,
resolutely not called that on the programme, but “A celebration of the life of
Tony Cornell”, Karen and I walked back to the car which was parked at the front
of the college. I sat in it while Karen
changed her shoes, and something on the grass by the car caught my eye. For a moment I could not work out what it
was, and then realised it was a green woodpecker, just a few feet away, on the
ground with its wings spread. I told
Karen not to move and for about half a minute we watched it sit there before it
flew away through the trees and across the Huntingdon Road. Karen reckoned it
had a glint in its eye so was probably Tony, wearing one of the masks of which
he was so fond, saying cheerio.
