Things my father taught me

How I remember him as a child

My father was a wild card and I was spellbound by him as a child. I would refuse to say goodbye to him when he left for work, hoping that he wouldn’t go. I tore his forehead when he lifted me up to kiss me goodbye. I was besotted. Always the life and soul of the party, the fun seeker, the questioner, he left it to my mother to play the straight man in their comedy duo. She felt one of them had to maintain some semblance of normality if we were to be brought up properly, and so he left that to her and took all the fun bits for himself. But I didn’t see that as a child.

He went drinking with some friends one evening and didn’t reappear for three days. No word, no mobiles, no idea where he was. He’d got so blind drunk he’d simply collapsed and slept under a couch for two days with a load of struggling artists. So the story goes. But he’d had a ball.

He set up societies wherever he lived as a means of getting people together, having fun and usually raising money for charity. But the primary aim was the getting together.

A massive poetry fan he would read, sobbing, waving his arms around. And of course he was a master after dinner speaker and Ode writer. Every wedding they went to he would do ‘a turn’. And he loved the show of it all, and mother watched and was proud. Very occasionally she would join him for a performance, but rarely. Unlike him, she hid her light under a bushel despite her being by far the better actor. They had met a Chester Theatre Club where she was a leading lady and he had walk on parts, but in life she let him shine.

Top Ten Things My Father Taught Me

1. It doesn’t matter what people look like or what they wear, it’s what they believe in that matters
2. Everybody deserves respect
3. No one is better than anyone else simply by birth or by the nature of the job they do
4. Unconditional love. No matter what mess I got myself in to.
5. Its alright to show emotion
6. Never stop learning, never stop asking questions
7. Never forget your roots, where you came from and what people sacrificed to let you be where you are
8. Applause is an aphrodisiac
9. People matter more than possessions
10. War is unspeakably horrific

Wedding Day 1955