Peter Galgut

Thank you all for coming.

My Dad lost his father when he was young, an experience which made him grow up very quickly. He gained a fierce determination to be self sufficient and a drive to succeed. During his formative years he was always looking for opportunities, whether it was collecting bottles from around the neighbourhood to claim their deposits, selling safari suits, photography or even trying to extract the silver from his leftover photographic chemicals. He wanted to know he could be independent, provide for himself.

always looking for something new to put his hand to

He sometimes described this as a feeling of ‘ champing at the bit’, never satisfied with just doing what he was doing, he was always looking for something new to put his hand to. He had a storied career as a preeminent dentist then periodontist, who ran his own practice, ran the hygiene school at UCL, gave lectures around the world and published more papers than any of his colleagues who were in full time research.

If you read his CV, you might have assumed that he was a dyed in the wool man of science but to those of us who knew him, he was a deeply spiritual person. He was a leader in the Jewish community but also saw the wisdom in many other traditions. Open minded, trained in acupuncture, read in kabbalah and willing to engage with anyone who was interested in deep questions of existence. He never lost his curiosity and would never take anything at face value, always looking for the hidden truth well as the apparent ones. A few years ago he wrote a book trying to reconcile these two sides of his beliefs, which I would like to read a brief passage from:

“As we examine the tiniest building blocks of matter, we come to rely increasingly on statistical probability  in the absence of observable physical certainty. Because these particles cannot be observed directly, and only estimated, there is a significant element of error and unreliability in the experiments. In other words, the closer we get to the essence of the universe, the fuzzier the picture and the less accurate our measurements become and the less reliable our mathematical predictions become. The laws of physics break down and we reach an impenetrable fuzz through which we simply cannot pass or see what is on the other side.

Therefore it is increasingly recognised that on the lowest levels of life (ie basic survival), experience is purely physical. While metaphysical existence may be defined in such terms as spirit or soul.The soul has no physical form but contains information only, possibly about past lives, present lives, the greater  reality or other aspects of existence we do not know.”

something beyond our physical existence

He believed there was something beyond our physical existence and while we may never know what is the nature of the soul, there is one type of immortality we can directly observe. He lives on in all of the memories of him that we cherish.His influence and his spirit will last well into the future. He was loved by all of his family and gave so much for us all to have what he never had, a father who was there to play with us, support us and to comfort us well into our adulthood; and a grandfather who loved his grandchildren so much and showed them every time he saw them. Even though Zena is too young to remember those moments, we have so many happy memories of them together, even in his last days.

For much of his life he considered himself something of an outsider and he would be truly heartened to see the number of people who were touched by meeting him. All of the people he met through his dentistry, through his Jewish community work and through his outreach to forgotten corners of the family tree.

We will all remember his sage advice, his jokes and positive attitude. The attitude he demonstrated spectacularly over the past few years. When he had his stroke five years ago and lost part of his vision, he was determined to continue his life as before. Any setback he encountered was just a problem to be solved. He never complained and just sought ways to make his situation better. He devised his own visual rehabilitation programme and continued to tinker and garden just like he had done before. A few months later, he built and decorated the chuppah for our wedding, with many people commenting on what a beautiful job he had done.

Even when a year ago he was given a diagnosis so similar to the one which had taken his father, an emotional blow that could have floored so many others, he maintained that same positive attitude. He wanted to fight it until the end and spend as much time with his loved ones. Still looking for ways to improve his situation right until the end. He was truly inspiring in his outlook.

So as he always liked to say on these occasions, “Oif Simchas”, I wish we could only meet for celebrations.

If I was to do this pure Peter Galgut style I’d take my jacket off, discard the notes, maybe drink a whisky, but I don’t quite trust myself at the moment so I’ll stick to my written words, mostly.

So. Here we are. But why? Believe me, I can’t express how loved, supported and comforted we’ve all felt over the past few days, weeks, years by you, the people we love and everyone who has helped, hugged, fed and cared for us. But in this moment, when we’re so bereft, I also believe we’re here to celebrate a life lived exceptionally well and fully. Because there really was so much to celebrate, and learn from, and if we can’t have him physically in our lives anymore, maybe we can take just a little bit of Peter into ourselves.

the most positive human being

First of all, he was the most positive human being I have ever had the pleasure to know. No challenge was insurmountable, no issue unfixable. In the past ten years he had prostate cancer, a hemorrhagic stroke and a brain tumour. At no point did he complain of the increasingly difficult and bizarre symptoms these diseases and their treatments threw at him. Not once. In fact Saul and I often found it hard to gauge whether he was even having symptoms. If you asked him how he was, he would do his mittel European shrug and say, “Thanks God, I’m ok.” If he was feeling particularly dafka, he would stand on one leg just to show you how little his increasingly serious balance issues were bothering him. He really struggled with reading and visual processing following his stroke, which no one knew how to resolve, so he designed himself a bespoke eye retraining programme which for the most part, worked at the time. And throughout his trials Mum was at his side, supporting him, rolling her eyes at his refusal to rest up or behave himself but looking after him, protecting him and making his life easier in a million ways. I’m conscious that life will continue to throw curve balls and hard times for all of us, although if the pace could slow down somewhat, that would be great, but if I can meet the challenges that will come with half the stoicism, good humour and positivity that they both showed then I’ll count myself extremely lucky.

Alongside the positivity though, was a solid, no nonsense physicality and an incredibly calm approach in an emergency. When Saul split his jaw growing up, Dad reset it on the spot. He fixed his own dislocated shoulder in the middle of Brazil. And in fact when the hedge trimmer slipped and Dad cut his own fingers seriously enough to worry about their ongoing function, he sewed them back together himself. And once he’d done that to his own satisfaction, and only then, he had the good grace to pass out from the pain. He was, as they say, hard as nails.

always made you feel you were the most interesting person in the room

In contrast though, he was an incredibly warm person. Everyone talks about his bear hugs and how they’ll be missed, and of course they will be, terribly. But more deeply, he cared about people and was genuinely interested in them. He drove a conversation with the smallest child to the most august professor with the same courtesy and ability to draw them out. He was always more interested in how you were than talking about how he was, and always made you feel you were the most interesting person in the room. He was such a people pleaser that when he ran his practice in Seven Sisters he marked every patient’s notes with their Tottenham or Arsenal affiliation. He didn’t care in the slightest about football but he knew it mattered deeply to them, so it mattered deeply to him. For years after he treated or taught them, patients and students would get in touch, check in, let him know how life was going. Each felt a really strong connection even from their brief interactions. It was a gift.

He was a doting father, designing all sorts of adventures for us growing up, exploding chemicals that weren’t on the syllabus, and frankly, for good reason, building us circuit toys and dens and hideaways and always game for some ridiculous adventure. I asked Dory and Oli for their memories of Grandpa and it all sounds familiar, the hideaway he built them in the garden during Covid from used pallets, the rough and tumble games on a Friday night, the pillow forts in the lounge. He loved the physicality of early childhood, the cuddles and tickles and raspberries. He even let the kids treat him like a great big human doll, washing and cutting his hair, shaving his beard (electric razor, don’t worry) and giving him beauty salon treatments like foot spas, massages and facials. He was constantly game and my kids, and in fact all young people he met, loved him for it.

endless stories that could have come straight from the Just William books.

They also loved his many naughty boy childhood stories, told in Dad’s inimitable style. From the girl who sat in front of him whose pigtails he used as paintbrushes to climbing drainpipes and putting his head through a hornet’s nest, he had endless stories that could have come straight from the Just William books. Although maybe not the ones concerning his Rabbi, who I’m afraid to say was often the butt of an assortment of childhood high jinks, from hiding in the Rabbi’s cupboard and making ‘spooky noises’ during services to stealing and rearranging his sermon, to soaping the handle of his office so he couldn’t get in. Maybe this was the beginnings of Dad’s disregard for the authority of people he didn’t respect that carried on throughout his life. In any case, the kids love all these stories endlessly.

That friction with authority lead to strong beliefs, which he always saw through. Mum and Dad met on an anti-apartheid rally, when the police tear gassed all the protestors and he looked after her. That drive to right wrongs persisted throughout life, whether working with development charities to promote access to dentistry, setting up automatic spamming of anti-semitic websites to impede their function or challenging the status quo in academia when their statistical research and conclusions weren’t robust enough. He helped friends and colleagues through illness, ran numerous Jewish organisations and was always looking for ways he could help in difficult times.

we’ll hug a little bit more and worry a little bit less

So yes, Pete lives on in our hearts and our memories, and in the wonderful legacy of the friends, family and community he created. But maybe also we can keep his spirit alive by being a little bit ‘Pete’ from time to time; a bit more eccentric, a bit more forthright, a bit more outward looking. Maybe we’ll take up a new hobby, although it doesn’t need to be Yiddish, life drawing, Tai Chi or any of the other millions of things Dad seemed to find time for. Maybe we’ll raise a glass of whisky and call a friend we haven’t spoken to for ages. Maybe we’ll hug a little bit more and worry a little bit less. Whatever we do, however we do it, we’ll be celebrating a truly wonderful human being who will be much missed.