As several people not at the funeral have asked, here is the text of my tribute to Bryan (more or less reconstructed from my notes). Well Bryan, this is the toughest assignment that you've set me yet. It feels like we are all here at the last workshop, but this time we have to manage on our own.
I'm sure many of us here will remember their first meeting with you! At first, I hated you, you bugger. Why? Because you said all the things that I didn't want to hear but needed to hear. That, for me, makes you not just a bloody good therapist but also a friend: isn't that what friends are about?
I came to think of you as a gentle giant - gentle but merciless in pursuing our demons and getting us into theose dark parts of our selves where we didn't want to go. You pursued us not through malice but because you believed passionately that everyone could get better, couold be better.
I remember one of your phrases: "You lay down your shield, and I'll lay down my sword" and came to understand that you would keep on with people until you got behind their protective and defensive shields. Your motto was "Confort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable". Well, I was one of those comfortable ones and, by God, did I get a shake up from you!
You have a very special way with people - you make every single person feel special, be the centre of your attention, and you would always believe in us, even when we felt that everyone else had given up on us.
You are inspired: how you would - with a word, a phrase, a look, a piece of music - make an important step in bringing us to where we needed to be. I don't know how you do it and frankly it doesn't matter. What is important is that works. And it works because you care deeply, passionately: you would never give up someone who was prepared to work with you.
You have a wicked sense of humour, without concern for being "politically correct": you would just say it as it needed to be said. You are the master of the oneliners - and we all know those famous "Bryanisms": why spend ages with complicated explanations when a oneliner is going to stick with you for the rest of your days.
As Father Chris said earlier, one of the most important of those oneliners is LOVE: Life's Only Vital Emotion. Your life is certainly full of love, and you have lived life to the full and always lived in the moment.
You are so proud of your marriage, of Carole,of your children. I would hope that you could be pround too of us, who have become your extended family.
If there is one important lesson I have learnt from you Bryan it is this: when you really love someone, you should let them go, because when you do so, you set them free and you never really lose them.
You have let us go and we have to adjust, learn to manage more on our own without you.
In turn, now we have to let you go and in doing so, let you know that we love you too Bryan.