on remembering my Dad

today my Dad would have celebrated his 93rd birthday and, as every day, he is on my mind.  I thought it would be nice to reflect here on his life and on his influence on my life.

Dad never got to be as old as I am now.  This is a sobering thought.  For the last ten years or so of his life he was unwell, and the fifty years before that had been a challenge.

Born the first, and to be only, son, in a family of girls, they were beyond poor.  Living in a two up two down terrace with very little money, his childhood was one of love, family and not much else.  It is true they did not have shoes, and that relatives helped with providing food in the lean times.  My Grandfather was a tradesman, in a time when work was scarce.  He would go out daily to queue for work at the docks, something my Dad did alongside him in later life.  The inequality and injustice the family suffered stayed with my Dad his whole life long.

His first job was a butchers boy, dashing around on his bike delivering meat he knew he could never afford.  The money earned was turned up to help the family.  Later he would gain a trade and during his apprenticeship learned more about the world.

Dad was a Catholic, the whole family were, descending from Ireland, religion held them together.  Dad was an altar boy and attended church school, at least some of the time.  It was when he started work that his faith was challenged, and changed forever.  The city he worked in was divided religiously, and his apprenticeship placed him working with those who despised the Catholic faith.  On learning the new apprentice’s faith, they set about bullying him and eventually he gave in.  Something he never forgot.  In years to come when we talked of faith and religion, he would say, keep your beliefs to yourself, and never, ever take someone’s faith from them.  I understood what he was saying and think of this often through my life.

So, apprenticeship done, he was finally working in a reasonably paid job, together with Mum they decided to buy a house.  This was an enormous step.  Everyone warned against it, no one they knew owned a house.  Dad was determined and was proud of his house until the day he died.  I remember standing in our back garden with him, looking at the house, he would say, Millionaires build their houses with south facing gardens, look this is what we have.  House ownership defined his adult life, security and a place of our own, gave us, his daughters a stable place to grow.

When I think of Dad, I think of that house, and I think of his firm steady hand, steering us through the process of growing up.  I talked to Dad more than Mum about life.  I think he understood me more.  I have written before about how his politics gave me my moral compass, and it is worth saying again.  Dad was ahead of his time.  Uneducated by schooling his learning came from a lifetime of working across the country.  He understood the politics of difference and made sure I did too.

So, thirty two years without you Dad, today on your birthday, I am wondering how you would think I am doing?  I reckon we would have had some real battles this past three decades. I know some of my decisions would have you in pieces, and we would have argued, me being me, might not have always been what you wanted.

I hope you will be proud, it has been tough without you and Mum, and there have been so many times when I needed your wisdom.  Still we did what you taught us, we kept on keeping on.

Every time I stand up for something I believe in, I am doing so on your shoulders.  Every second I spend trying to right injustice you are by my side.  Every time I laugh at ridiculously silly jokes, it is you in my ear.  Without you, there would be no me.

Happy Birthday Dad.

 

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