Elliot Pfebve 9 February 1969 – 24 May 2026

I was privileged to speak at the funeral service for Elliot at Christ Church Blakenall presided over by the Revd Helen Babiy:

Here is my eulogy to Elliot: 

Thank you all for coming here today to support our beloved Dorothy, Gerald, Elliot Jnr,  Griffiths and Gillian, and Elliot’s grandson Cairo; his 
sisters-in law, brothers in law and extended family;
The words of Rabindranath Tagore are apt: When you live in the hearts, Of those you love, Remember then, You never die.

It is a privilege to speak today and I was humbled on a zoom call to hear tributes to Elliot from around the world;
Elliot’s background was to fight for justice for everyone about everything that caused injustice;
Across the world from Zimbabwe to Birchalls via the United Nations, we heard his voice calling for freedom, justice and democracy;
He believed it and lived it;
Dorothy you and the children shared him with us; no one except you and the family know what it was like and you stood by him;
even though he was hurt by his political enemies it never stopped him;
I learnt from him; I couldn’t complain because he never complained about what life threw at him; and it threw a whole lot; more than any of us will ever know;
As he touched our lives I was thinking about those he touched;
And thought of them in 3 groups of people who were like his family, his friends,
In the Labour Party, Coventry University and the NHS;
of his Labour party friends who are well represented here today; he just got on with it; canvassing at the local and general elections speaking to people; whether it was the corner shop; a neighbour who lived in overcrowded house; Or when he saw crime; we had a meeting with the Police and crime commissioner Simon Foster in his front room;
Slings and arrows, sticks and stones – if words hurt him he never showed it;
And then there are his Coventry University friends;
Imagine being a young person and being taught by Elliot;
how inspirational that must be; could have been the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe
He said how good his colleagues were to him when he needed treatment;
Dictators and autocrats couldn’t touch you, sadly cancer did;
Even then you beat that bad boy with your NHS family;
An important trial for a mRNA vaccine, the first ever, recorded forever by the BBC, a celebrity,
he loved his nurses and doctors who looked after him;
He wanted to give something back so set up the Elliot Pfebve Cancer Intervention and Support Foundation;
many of you were at that meeting; from all backgrounds and even then Elliot insisted on making a plea for blood donors among our community;
And when he came to the House of Commons for World Cancer day in February this year, people looked at him in awe –they had never met such a survivor;
thank you to all of you in the NHS who looked after him; 
Always gentle he put hatred and racism behind him and looked to the future ;
Dorothy, Gerald, Elliot Jnr, Griffiths and Gillian and Cairo;
we are here for you all, all the families I have spoken of today are here for you and we won’t go away; we are family;

I want to end with some word of comfort from the Poem All Is Well by Canon Henry Scott Holland first heard at St Paul’s Cathedral. 

All is Well:

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped into the next room
I am I  and you are you
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,

Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow,
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was,
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,
Just around the corner.
All is well.

And from Shakespeare:

Our hearts are broken but not our spirit:
Goodnight sweet prince may flights of angels sing thee to they rest,
Elliot : amazing grace ; may you rest in peace and rise in glory Amen.