Everybody gets their bad days, but Oscar wasn't really one to let you get away with it if you were feeling down. In fact, I kind of wish he was here today, really, because we could do with his help getting through one of our worst days, I think. Every morning, when we had Plenary, we'd meet by the lift and I'd always get some sort of greeting or a cwtch, or an endearing nickname, and that smile that you just couldn't—you couldn't resist it, could you, really? We all know what it felt like. And it just displayed that generosity that so many people have already talked about today.

But, beyond that generosity, he had a very strong sense of due gratitude as well. And I remember, on that trip to Israel that others have spoken of, that we stopped at a restaurant that was run by a Druze family, and, on this occasion, it was Oscar, actually, who was late to the minibus, not Mark, and the reason for that is that he'd stopped at a stall just outside the restaurant, which was run by an elderly lady, and it was full of very bedraggled plants and some honey that the old lady's bees had made. And he was determined to have that honey, not just to thank his hosts, because this lady was a member of that family, but to honour the old woman's craft.

He found other people's faiths, as we've heard from others today, completely fascinating, and his determination to bring people of different beliefs and different practices together was a genuine and proper passion. And as I've been trying to understand more myself about Muslim beliefs and differences between different communities, Oscar was always very, very happy to talk to me and share his knowledge. And it was so clear how important his own faith was to him, and, as I learned more about what matters in Muslim life, I learned more about Oscar, I think—how much it impacted everything he thought about. And, of course, we've heard so much about his love for his wife and his daughter, and that comes not just from his natural personality, but from the values, the benign values, that he held and displayed wherever he went, really. 

And if I want to think about him at his most joyful and his most excited, and his most moved, I think, I just want to go back to that day that we all had in Jerusalem that Angela had mentioned, because, earlier in that day, we'd been to Yad Vashem, and Oscar had been with us at a ceremony at the eternal flame there. But he then disappeared for some hours, and we wondered where he'd all got to. Anyway, he came back to us, and we'd heard that he'd been to Al-Aqsa at Haram al-Sharif, Temple Mount, which of course is one of Islam's holiest places. And the joy in his face when he came back, well, he was sharing with us—those of you who were there will remember it. How he managed to get in there is one of Oscar's magic stories, of course. But that day does remind me that today we're not just saying goodbye to our Oscar, to our Uncle Oscar, but to Mohammad, who was a friend to humankind.