Death
In the autumn of 1993 Johnston undertook a series of UK theatre tours, entertaining live audiences as a raconteur. On the morning of 2 December 1993, whilst in a taxi going to Paddington station en route to Bristol, he suffered a massive heart attack. The taxi driver drove him straight to the nearest Maida Vale hospital where he was revived, after a cardiac arrest. He was transferred to St Mary's Hospital, Paddington where he remained until 14 December. He was then transferred to the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers until he was discharged on 23 December. He was then re-admitted to hospital on 4 January when his health deteriorated again.
Brian Johnston died on the morning of 5 January 1994, at the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers in Marylebone, London. The Daily Telegraph described him as "the greatest natural broadcaster of them all" and John Major, the contemporaneous British Prime Minister and cricket fan, said that "Summers simply won't be the same without him". A memorial service was held in a packed Westminster Abbey on 16 May 1994 with over 2,000 people present.
Read more about this topic: Brian Johnston
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Almost everybody in the neighborhood had “troubles,” frankly localized and specified; but only the chosen had “complications.” To have them was in itself a distinction, though it was also, in most cases, a death warrant. People struggled on for years with “troubles,” but they almost always succumbed to “complications.””
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
“It is conceivable at least that a late generation, such as we presumably are, has particular need of the sketch, in order not to be strangled to death by inherited conceptions which preclude new births.... The sketch has direction, but no ending; the sketch as reflection of a view of life that is no longer conclusive, or is not yet conclusive.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“You know, if this is Venus, or some other strange planet, we’re liable to run into some high-domed characters with green blood in their veins who’ll blast at us with their atomic death rayguns, and there we’ll be with these—these poor old-fashioned shootin’ irons.”
—Edward L. Bernds (b. 1911)