Jillian Becker in a letter to the Telegraph discusses the memory of her friend Antony Flew, whose reputation controversially shifted in the last decade of his life.

Antony Flew ought to be remembered as an atheist

SIR – I knew Antony Flew (Obituary, April 14) for many years. We met a few times a year and wrote frequently. On politics and religion, we saw eye to eye: we were both atheist conservatives.

Obituaries on both sides of the Atlantic say that he was the world’s most famous atheist, but suddenly changed his mind and declared that God exists after all. It is true that he did say this. But he never said it when he was in his right mind.

It would have been unkind of me to write this while he was alive. Now, to do him justice, I declare that the reasoning by which he arrived at his certainty that God does not exist was never reversed by the sloppy arguments of his senility.

Continues: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/7607564/A-national-version-of-the-hung-council-in-Wirral-would-not-benefit-the-country.html