Happy Birthday Dad

My Dad would have been 91 today. He died in December 2016 a week after after collapsing at home. He wasn't a well man by any means, but I don't think anyone expected that he wouldn't recover from that event. We all thought he was too stubborn and bloody minded to go that easily.

Born in 1929 when the world was a very different place, he grew up in Sale, Manchester. His father was variously in the army, a confectioner, and a school caretaker (he might also have been a bookie). The family endured a torrid few years in the 40's. The first of his two older sisters Dorothy, died in 1945 from tuberculosis at the age of just 22. Six months later his mother died aged 52, and on Boxing Day 1947 his other sister Joan also died of tuberculosis at the age of 26.

Aged 8, 1937

After a period working as a railway clerk, Dad joined the Royal Navy and served abroad during the Malay Emergency. It was in the Navy that he met my Mum, who was also in the Navy as a serving WREN.

He was a qualified sailing instructor (Front left)

A post sailing pint and a fag! (Standing, with cigarette)

On leaving the Navy he briefly worked for Littlewoods as a trainee manager before working for Mars, the confectionary company, initially as a salesman with a little van in the south of England (Hampshire and Wiltshire) but latterly as a manager on the chocolate line at Mars' large factory in Slough. We were never short of chocolate or Spangles (remember them?) in our house!  I can also recall the smell of chocolate that pervaded the air any time we drove near to the massive industrial estate where the Mars factory was located!

Dad's Mars van c1960

In late 1969 Dad left Mars for a manager's position at Geest (the banana people), where he was responsible for (amongst other things) making coleslaw. That move necessitated a relocation from Slough to rural Lincolnshire, a place where we lived for 10 years in the village of Donington. The part we lived in was wholly agricultural, and flat. Big sky, sugar beet, sprouts, cabbages as far as the eye can see! It can be a stark place, but I love going back there when we go to visit my elder brother who still lives close to where we lived. As an aside, and perhaps in a spooky foray into the future, I remember once coming with my Dad on a trip to Barry where the Geest ships sometimes docked. Now I live here. Spooky indeed.

A Board meeting. Dad top left. Think this was during his time at Geest
No computers or mobiles in those days!

After being made redundant from Geest in a move I don't think he saw coming, he had a short spell as a manager with the packaging firm Linpac, based near Goole on Humberside. Dad commuted there by car, around a 160 mile round trip, no mean feat in the 70's. I don't think he was ever particularly happy there, and in 1979 after much deliberation and input from all of us as a family, at the age of 50 he took a brave decision to quit and took a substantial pay cut to work as a Field Commissioner for the Scout Association covering Avon and Wales. He'd been heavily involved in scouting as a volunteer until then. So we uprooted again and moved to Chepstow. He worked for the Scout Association until he retired, but was highly respected and kept involved almost up until his death particularly through his massive network of contacts and my sister who also works for the Scouts in a roughly similar type of role.

In his Scout uniform of which he was hugely proud

As well as this work, he was also active in the local community. He was Secretary of the local Athletic Club for several years, played in the local quiz league, and sang in the Chepstow Male Voice Choir. He could be a truculent and antagonistic bloke at times, perhaps the embodiment of the "grumpy old git" (I think that's where I get it from). He was never wrong about anything in his eyes and the word stubborn was made for him. He was still driving until about a year before his death. When his licence was pulled for health reasons, he kicked up an awful fuss - he'd recently been berating other drivers (actually, skip the "recently") for driving too close to the white line as he was getting through wing mirrors at an alarming rate. He absolutely wouldn't have it that it was probably him not the other drivers.....

He loved his beer, cricket, the sea, dogs (of which he had many over the years), France, where he visited several times and had some dear friends, but above all he loved his family.

I miss him , and strangely (or not) I often have dreams where the two of us (and occasionally others) are travelling somewhere. I'm sure a dream psychologist would have a field day with that.

I'm not sure what he'd make of our current situation had he still been with us. I'm guessing that despite being in the vulnerable group on both age and health, he'd have still taken his dog out, and gone shopping himself.

A poor quality photo, but the last one I have of him, with my younger brother, about 3 weeks before he died

I will raise a glass to the "Squire" tonight.

Until tomorrow

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives