At Christmas I mentioned that that time of year has, at the moment anyhow, profound effect on me. Another date that has a similar effect is today – March 21. Today would have been my Dads 79th birthday. For most people today is the first day of Spring (although judging by the weather we've had over the last couple of days you'd be hard-pressed to think so!! Lol!!), nature wakes up from it's 4-month rest, flowers begin to spring forth …… and we all lose an hours sleep (lousy British Summer Time!!! Lol!!)
Anyway, I thought long and hard about whether to write this blog and decided I'd take this opportunity to tell you (if you're at all interested anyway!!!) about my Dad. It'll be all over the place because I'm writing this as I think of it. I'm not sure whether I'll go as far as discussing his final days. I'll see how I feel about that as I come to the end – that might turn out to be a tale for another day. We'll see ……
A bit of history first. My Dad was born on 21 March 1928 in Portsmouth. A few years later he was joined by a brother who unfortunately passed to Cancer in the mid-80's. His dad didn't stick around long by all accounts and he was raised pretty much single-handedly by his Mum (my grandmother obviously) who passed away in the mid-70's, with help from her parents. He did his national service (when we still had National Service) in the 40's over in Germany and always spoke fondly of the time he spent over there. He'd been married twice. The first time to Bet, with whom he had my half sister Linda (who incidentally we don't hear much from but that's for another day!!). After that marriage ended he met my Mum, and a few years later, after a false start, I came along – well, if I hadn't, firstly you lot never would've met/heard of me and secondly it'd be a bloody miracle that a non-entity could use a laptop!!!
I remember vividly the 3 jobs he either had or spoke fondly of. When he lived in Portsmouth he worked for Smiths crisps as, I think, foreman, where he met and made many dear friends who we sent Christmas cards to every year, and unfortunately most of whom have now left us, when my parents moved to Surrey he then worked as a warehouseman-foreman-y type for Cory Distribution eventually being made redundant and then moving on to work at a company called Le Maitre, which specialised in building furniture. He was a big home improvement buff and LOVED woodwork – strangely though he hated decorating. I think he liked the actual hard graft of building something rather than the 'prettying up'. I remember he used to spend hours in the garage working with wood and building things. I had a cabin bed when I was little – y'know the ones I mean – not exactly a bunk-bed, but it had a little desk at the head end and a wardrobe at the other, and because my room already had a built in wardrobe, he converted the wardrobe in the bed into a dolls house, putting in floors and 'papering the walls' and made furniture for my dolls to use – little dining sets and beds and stuff!! Lol!! I think he would've loved to have made a career of making quality, bespoke furniture. We also all became dab hands at building flatpack furniture and me and my Mum can now knock together a wardrobe in half an hour or so!!! Hey. That's a big achievement – we get it all round the right way and everything!!! ;)
As you've probably gathered, I had a fantastic childhood with my Dad. Mum always said how he doted on me, even going so far as to have to wake me up when I was fast asleep as a baby just to make sure that I was still alive!!! Don't get me wrong, I wasn't spoilt. He always knew when to say no and had no hesitation in doing so, but regardless of that he would never see me wont for anything. I was a Daddy's girl and no mistake. We had some fantastic times and even though now I struggle to remember the specifics, I still remember the feeling of walking round some stately home holding his hand while he gave me a history lesson, or sitting next to him and having a cuddle while he told me the ol' "When I was young …" stories that all parents do. I also remember, and still have somewhere, the tapes of Fairy Tales he made for me when I was younger for when he couldn't read to me.
He's the one who got me interested in reading, architecture, nature and all manner of other subjects (except history which never really held much sway for me), hence why some of you will have noted my insistence on taking pictures of a library and a war memorial in Manchester?? Well that was my Dad's fault!!! ;) Which is another thing, because he remembered it, he got me to appreciate the sacrifices that all those men who went to war in our defence made for us to have what we have now – or at least what we had before the government got involved!! Lol!!! ;). In politics, he figured the fight was between Blue and Red, because anything else was a wasted vote, and red was NEVER going to get his vote. Dad didn't like Labour. Lol!!
Family outings and holidays meant visiting somewhere else in the UK, going out and spending time together and maybe learning something at the same time – museums, country parks, stately homes (his favourite place ever was Hampton Court and we went there several times – it was the ceilings and the deer that did it!!! ;)) – and spending your money on something that'd last rather than a pencil or a rubber. And every couple of years that's what we did. The last family holiday we had was to Wales in 1995. It wasn't the same. Dad's illness was kicking in so me and Mum would do the togetherness thing while Dad stayed in the car with the dog and missed out because it had become harder for him to walk the long distances round these interesting places, so he played Chauffeur to Mum's Navigator and waited outside. We never had another family holiday after that one. We didn't even visit family in the South of England much anymore, (a) because we were now so far away from them all, and (b) because Dad just couldn't do it anymore.
He was formally diagnosed as terminally ill in 1998. He had emphysema which had developed through years of smoking (which he gave up when Mum was expecting me) and which was complicated by having worked in a dusty environment at Le Maitre. Mum gave up work to look after him and he spent the next 5 years gradually getting worse.
I don't think I'm ready to put the rest of this down at the moment. They say leave your audience wanting more. I know you won't necessarily WANT more, but I'll post something another day and give you the choice of whether you want to read it. It won't be nice and it certainly WON'T be pleasant, but at some point it'll be there if you want to see it. In the meantime, I want to add one more thing. One of my biggest regrets is not spending enough time with my Dad at the end. The reasons for my NOT spending time with him will become apparent in the next blog, but please promise me one thing. Make the most of the time you have with your folks. They're a fount of knowledge and experience and believe me, you will SO miss it when it isn't there anymore.
H.xx
No comments:
Post a Comment