John MacKenna
speaker
119 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 6 Sep
John MacKenna’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And in his final months he contented himself with the mat at the foot of the stairs.
Some mountains were no longer to be conquered.
Yet, even into his dotage, the sight of a child running on the green space in front of the house was enough to get him up and going, eggs forgotten.
On winter afternoons he watched the falling snow through the sitting room window, before diving enthusiastically into drifts.
At night he slept so close to the stove that we feared he might catch fire.
I imagine the memory of that cold, wet ditch into which he and his siblings had been thrown never left him.
And so the lead lies on the back seat of the car.
The ashes lie in their container in the blue bag until we are all gathered as a family to scatter them.
They're reminders that sadden.
But they have a value too.
as treasured mementos of a companion who gave and gave and gave all the love that filled his life.
And as a result filled ours.
A week after his death I was telling a friend of mine who was a monk about Leonard.
As we parted, my friend said,
I'll pray for Leonard's soul.
And I knew in that instant he understood how fundamental a part of our lives one dog had been.
I presume he was there, one of twenty or so youngsters sitting in rows in the prefab that served as the English room.
Those fresh-faced boys and girls were probably taking in the posters on the walls.
Dylan Thomas poems, lyrics from Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, photographs of school productions of plays and concerts.
And, as it happened, Gary ended up in a different class with a different teacher.
Showing 41–60 of 119 · page 3 of 6
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