EULOGY FOR TOM by Scott Forster.

For his funeral held on 12/1/24.

We gather here today to remember our family member , friend, neighbour and colleague   Thomas Leonard, better known to those who knew him as Tom.

Tom was born in Devonshire in 1948 and grew up in Plymouth. He studied Mathematics at Imperial College London and later University College London. He worked and taught statistics at Madison Wisconsin from 1979 to 1996. Tom co-founded the renowned  International Society for Bayesian Analysis(ISBA) in 1993.

 Moving to working at University of Edinburgh from 1995, Tom  published two academic books in statistics (one in 1999 and one in 2001) before finally medically retiring in autumn 2001, aged 53. Tom was both proud of his time in academia but critical of its commercialization whereas he believed in the pursuit of knowledge for human advancement.

Tom was a seeker of truth and justice.  He was always on a spiritual journey and so moved from church to church and was an unsparing critic of where he felt Christians failed to live up to what was required of them. He moved from Episcopalian to Church of Scotland to Quakers before finally finding a home at Augustine United Church which he found to be welcoming and so the right fit for him.

He spoke truth to power whether in statistics, churches or society at large. He was a strong supporter of the LGBTQ+ community of which he was a part,  speaking out against gay discrimination by the US military on the Madison Wisconsin campus  in 1989.

He spoke out regularly in support of the disabled and neurodiverse and  very strongly in support of Palestinians, taking part in protests in solidarity with them . He worried deeply for the future of the world and urged us to act to change it.

His battles with mental health issues are well documented and motivated him to become a campaigner on the issue with him fighting for improved treatments  that went beyond  the medical model and him seeing mental health issues as a product of our social and political contexts.

As a retired academic, thinking, writing and reading was his bread and butter from his retirement until the last weeks of his life. He would love to debate and argue passionately on many topics from religion to politics, history to science, literature to philosophy.

Tom was a prolific writer. He co-wrote and published two academic textbooks on statistics and his  personal history of statistics was published by Wiley .   Alongside those he has a catalogue of numerous unpublished poems, essays, short stories, novels and a yet to be published  book of LGBTQ+ history .

It was through creative writing that Tom met his flatmate of 10 years Scott . Tom was in a writer's group Scott had begun attending. Eventually dissatisfied with what was felt to be its stifling intellectual atmosphere  they split off and both Scott and Tom co-founded a new writers group which they hoped would prove freer air to breathe and the group lasted a number of years.

Another aspect of Tom was that he had a long standing interest in the history of eugenics and its consequences on society. From the perspective of his subject statistics,  he was ashamed of its origins in eugenics.

One of his proudest moments was when Tom and Scott went together to University College London in 2019 to present the evidence they had co-wrote together to the inquiry into University College London’s involvement in eugenics.  

Until the pandemic in 2020 Tom was socially active regularly going to the Royal Statistical Society meetings in Edinburgh and making contributions including giving a presentation oh the history of statistics, going to a chess group, going to a reading group at the Botanic gardens and going to bowls and scrabble at his church.

With the pandemic he became more fearful and health conscious as many of us did and perhaps rightly so as his health woes increased considerably.

After 2020 he became more withdrawn, spending much of his time in the flat writing, reading and watching sports. Plymouth Argyll was his favourite team. World cups were major events for him.  

Tom was a compulsive player of chess and champion of scrabble. We would go over to   Julie's house at Christmas and New year and he was a serious and competitive player whereas Julie and Scott were more light hearted about it. He would brook no messing about or silliness. This wasn't just a game to him. He could be witty and charming, stubborn and difficult, eccentric and thought provoking. There will only ever be one Thomas Leonard. He was one of a kind. We will all miss him deeply.

...

Tom's life story.

 Some of Tom's life story is recounted in his autobiographical work, Life of a Bayesian Boy.

• born in Flete House, Yealmpton, Devonshire in 1948 
• In 1966  took the Great Western train from Plymouth to Paddington to study Mathematics at Imperial College London. 
•  University College London, on Gower Street, where he was accepted to study for an intensively difficult advanced level Masters and a Ph.D. in the first ever university Statistics department,
•  offered a lectureship at the University of Warwick, to start in September 1972
• SABBATICAL YEAR (1978-79)
• taught Statistics 775
• finally returned to the University of Warwick in August 2017, after 38 years to attend a Quakers Annual Meeting. But late in 2017, I suffered two serious falls which damaged my left leg. I nevertheless celebrated my 70 th birthday in Vittoria Restaurant on 24th March 2018, with 37 guests including John and Serene Hsu from Santa Barbara, and Diego and Diane Perez from Manchester.
•  In July 2019, I returned from UCL after almost 50 years to give evidence with my flatmate Scott Forster, as expert witnesses to the Commission of Inquiry into the History of Eugenics at UCL. It was good to meet Professor Tom Fearn once again, and our verbal and written submissions were well received. I was delighted to learn during January 2021 about the sweeping decisions made by UCL based on the Commission's recommendations, 

Reflections on Tom as co-founder of Edinburgh All Comers Writers Club. An informal recounting.

 By Scott Forster, flatmate  friend and Co-founder of the Edinburgh All Comers Writers Club.

The recording of history is a vital act and a more complete history remains to be written.

Edinburgh All Comers writers Club was founded as a split away from another writing group which a number of us found to be intellectually stifling since it was run by a group of 3 rich men and was artistically and politically conservative and very unwelcoming not to mention discouraging and increasingly capitalist as we were demanded to pay funds while many of us were disabled unemployed. It provided an example of what not to do as a creative writing group and was seared into our memories as a negative experience.

Edinburgh All Comers Club ( which moved from Jeremiahs Taproom in Elm Row, Edinburgh to meeting every Tuesday at 7pm at  Sofia's bar, Henderson Street in Leith ) was intended to be a polar opposite to the previous group- free to attend, democratic, inclusive and encouraging.  It shaped everything we did. We lasted 3-4 years.

I(Scott) was pushy in urging the group to adopt a code of conduct which was eventually adopted even if it occasionally attracted its detractors. The intention was to avoid a repeat of the sexism, ableism, racism etc of the previous group.  I think largely we managed to escape those problems.

In it's best days the group ,while small, was a hotbed of creative experimentation, deep discussions on politics, religion, literature, art and philosophy providing a stimulating space for the exchange of texts and ideas, providing a temporary escape from the travails of life. There was humour, agony aunt sharing of personal lives and we all challenged each other.

But  the group eventually fell apart as egos and personality clashes dwindled down the membership until only a core including the founders were left attending.  Writers group tend to not always  attract the best people.

Negatively for myself this discouraged me from writing groups and even writing itself for some time , something I'm only just returning to since 2023.

However the experience was not wholly negative.  Out of it a number of members had success such as publications or featured on radio stations.   We would like to think we played a small part in that.

This is the old website for the club which can be accessed using the wayback machine https://web.archive.org/web/20160402102448/http://edinburgh.writersclub.org.uk/ 

The description we gave was, 

The Edinburgh All-Comers Writers Club is a democratically-organised and convivial group which meets every Tuesday evening for the purpose of encouraging creative writers and poets of all abilities, including beginners and accomplished authors.

Participants are welcome to bring along a short sample of whatever they’re working on to read to the group – though there is no pressure if you don’t fancy reading anything out, you don’t have to. Just come along and join us for what will surely be the most intellectually-stimulating and enjoyable thing you will do on a Tuesday evening!

If you are reading, try and bring around 8 copies of your work, so everyone can read along. All types of creative work are accepted. Each reading will be followed by a constructive discussion and general writing-related banter.

The group meets from 7-10pm every Tuesday in the back room at Sofi’s Bar, 63-65 Henderson Street. It really is a lovely venue for the group!

Here's a poem Tom wrote in 2019 to our friend and fellow Edinburgh All Comers Writers Club member the great Scottish Poet Lindsay Oliver,

TO LINDSAY AND THE SPIRIT OF THE PALESTINIAN BOY by Tom Leonard

                                                   

                        TO LINDSAY AND THE SPIRIT OF THE PALESTINIAN BOY

                                                   by Tom Leonard


                                       I met her in the All Comers Writers Club,

                                      That Scott created fair space for,

                                       Before the dog chased us out of Jeremiah's Taproom.

                                       Then in Sofi's we prospered,

                                       All in all a motley crew

                                       That splintered as if in a bizarre novel

                                       Leaving only the steadfast well bonded.

                                       And now all those hipster lunches in the  Roseleaf,

                                       Trips around the Lothians and the Tweed,

                                       And festive times happily spent,

                                       Are good memories soon to be resumed.


                                       Freya and Hera entwined,

                                        She writes of

                                        Fairies who become children

                                        Children who become birds

                                        That between the Bass Rock and Tantallon fly

                                         Birds who become fairies

                                         And fight with the pixies

                                         That from Trimontium scamper.

                                         She composed Wake up my Son

                                         Mind searingly about the Palestinian boy,

                                         And wrote poems about the black victims of the rabid police,

                                         And about all souls who are slain in vain

                                         By the evil ripples that shuffle above.



                                         Lindsay likes Kath and they both like cats;

                                         She is the spirit of the short story in the Spiegeltent

                                         And its time so well spent.

                                         She lives with MS

                                         While I wither and dither

                                         From maladies man-made

                                         She lives in her daughters, acrobatic and wild

                                          And in her grandson, who is such a smart child.

                                        
                                          Retired lecturer from Heriot-Watt.

                                          She worked in Michigan when I haunted Wisconsin

                                         Applied psychologist and mathematician too

                                         She lives in Number One One One Cornhill Terrace

                                          A haven for the spirit people and the ravens in the trees

                                         She's taught me perceptions which I never knew.

                                          My wife and my Polish girl were the loves of my life,

                                         Not to forget the Mayflower Rose,

                                         But Lindsay stands tall

                                         As the soundest woman I have known

                                         As she stands on her pedestal and reclines on her throne.



                                       
                                               MCGINTY'S CAT

Lavender Rising.

 We will make efforts to continue and publish Tom's unpublished non fiction LGBTQ+  history book entitled Lavender Rising.

Another proud moment- interview conducted by Diego Andrés Pérez Ruiz published by ISBA in 2016.

 Tom was very proud of this 2016 interview conducted by Diego Andrés Pérez Ruiz published by ISBA which he co-founded

https://bayesian.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/1612.pdf

https://thomashoskynsleonardblog.blogspot.com/2019/03/diego-passes-his-viva.html

https://thomashoskynsleonardblog.blogspot.com/2016/09/bayesian-interview-by-diego-andres.html

One of Tom's proudest moments- The 2019 UCL Eugenics Inquiry.

 Tom and Scott Forster presented evidence to the UCL Eugenics inquiry in 2019. Sadly it was a whitewash.

WRITTEN AND VERBAL SUBMISSIONS TO THE  COMMISSION

                      OF INQUIRY   INTO THE HISTORY OF EUGENICS AT UCL 

                      (with Scott Forster 2019)

                      has been cited by Professor Ann Alison Phoenix of UCL

See THE FORSTER-LEONARD SUBMISSION TO THE UCL EUGENICS INQUIRY  

Personal Tribute to Tom by Scott Forster.

 RIP  my dear friend and flatmate of 10 years  Thomas Leonard  the retired  Bayesian Statistician, unorthodox Christian,  author, historian, poet, writer, activist,  compulsive chess player, scrabble champion and larger than life personality. We discussed and debated (and at times disagreed strongly and heatedly) many questions from  psychology to religion to politics, philosophy to history etc.

As an activist he was part of and stood with the LGBTQ+ community, for the disabled and neurodiverse and for those with mental health distress and all feeding into the fact that he was a tireless enemy of eugenics such as when we spoke at the (what turned out to be a whitewash) 2019 UCL Eugenics Inquiry   . He supported BLM, indigenous rights, migrant rights and more. He supported Palestinian liberation and was a relentless critic of Israel and Zionism. He totally condemned the Tories and their austerity/ neo-liberalism. 

He argued against Christian conservatism and fundamentalism and fought for a more progressive vision of Christianity drawing on the Epistle of James arguing that "Faith without deeds is dead" and the basic message of Jesus was living an ethical life and social justice. In this he was inspired by Rev Peter Macdonald (1958-2020) the Minister at Broughton St Mary's Parish Church, Edinburgh. He eventually found a home at Augustine Church, Edinburgh.

He acted on that principle. He left two churches in disgust due to their homophobia and transphobia, and left one due in part to one of their members Islamophobia. He also condemned certain Edinburgh activists for their tolerance of transphobia and other oppressiveness within their ranks. 

There are many lessons we can learn from his life and he set an example in ways to follow.

*He fought for justice in society.

*He told the truth even when it was unpopular whether that was within statistics, in churches etc.

*He refused to allow history to be re-written to skirt over failures of organisations.

*He was a relentless critic of eugenics, of Israel/Zionism, of the Tories/Neo-liberalism, of homophobia and Transphobia.

* He called for society to change completely to benefit disabled and neurodiverse people.

*He called for the unity of the LGBTQ+ community and for intersectionality.

His passing is a deep shock and leaves a void.