After a trying day in work, I came home with the intention of posting a photo of a ten year old me with my favourite 'Sod Off!' badge. Leafing through old photos to find it, I came across shots of me and my dad on holiday. In the recent posts, ive remembered how he went to great lengths to find me toy cars and brought me my very first Spacex Space Patrol One. After an especially long works bender in Blackpool, several pints of strong ale and falling asleep on top of the piano, he got up nest day and visited the shops to find me a special present. Its over ten years now since he died and in that time I never really accepted the fact that he was truly gone and when id visit my mum who i lost just last New Years Eve, I always felt he was either in the kitchen washing dishes or laboring in his garden shed. The last twelve months have been difficult for me as that last outpost of home has now been removed and all the familiar little things, like his cap and coat behind the door of my mums house and his shed full of tools have now gone.
Next January, ill be fifty, but at times the years smudge like the faded paper of old photographs and im 7 again, its a simpler time and the excitement of saturday morning comics, new toy cars and the wonder of holidays and christmas fill me and he's there again, that quiet, powerful, capable and solid man. Always there when I had a problem, a question, a want or just my dad. Holding my hand and making it all okay again.
Poignant stuff, Wote.
ReplyDeleteSounds like your Dad was a great guy and obviously a great influence on you. Sounds like your poor mum had her work cut out for her though - two O.T.T. toy collectors in the family - patience of a saint, eh.
ha,ha - he was shrewd enough to collect toys vicariously, buying stuff he liked for me! His big passion was always trains and planes, so getting the hornby trains out was usually an opportunity for him to play rather than me!
ReplyDeleteA very poignant post Wote, and one I can relate to, although my dad (who we lost 15 years ago now) was not a modeller or collector.
ReplyDeleteI was into Hornby trains though and he was always there to help me with baseboards and wiring and such.
I can so remember many happy Saturday afternoons when mum (gone 4 years now) was doing some shopping with my sister and dad listening to the radio (he loved a bit of opera) and I would be playing contentedly with my medieval Knights, Trojan and Roman soldiers on the carpet.
It may sound simple and basic but I have a feeling people who read this blog will know exactly what I mean.
What was your dad's favourite sort of rolling stock?
Thanks for the post Wote, life can be very bittersweet.
Ha, you make that sound like a bad thing, Wote - when my lad was a youngster he didn't have to ask for Tracy Island or the Spectrum Command Team I just new he'd love 'em - funny thing is he's grown up being into computer games and all 'his' Anderson stuff is in my loft!
ReplyDeleteLovely post, Wote. And somehow it seems fitting we get this glimpse here on the blog of your dad and your childhood. (I'm smiling as I write, cos of that top photo.)
ReplyDeleteBut ... (heavy sigh) ... I'm a little bit envious of the way it was for you and eviled. I had good parents (they really were), but they spent most of the time arguing and shouting at each other, and I lived my childhood in a constant state of anxiety (or so it seems when I look back).
Plus, they disowned me ages and ages ago. Don't even know if they are still alive. And do you know what the really, really sad thing is? I don't miss them at all, let alone in the deep way you two obviously miss yours.
Not inviting anyone to a pity-party here. Just reflecting a little. Memories like yours are worth having. Bittersweet, like eviled said.
This kind of came out of the blue for me and apologies Toad if it stirs memories for you.
ReplyDeleteI had intended it a s a funny post with me in my dodgy haircut and Sod Off badge, but when i came across that b/w photo of my dad and the way were just stood there in the misty background, i suddenly realised that it was more or less the anniversary of his passing over the next days or so and i broke down. But seeing the photo it was almost as if hes still there somewhere, waiting.
No, no, no. There's not the tiniest need for an apology. No memories were stirred ... just wistful envy. It's a marvellous post, and I can't picture a more appropriate place for it than here.
ReplyDeleteImagine if he could see all this. "Look, dad. Look what I did with all those toys you got, and those catalogues you collected."
I wonder what he'd think of computers and the internet ... and Ebay? Would you have searched together, perhaps? Who knows? But it's nice to think he'd have liked the blog, and maybe added bits of his own.
A very moving post, and probably what Blogs were 'really' invented for instead of all the flickr porn and Games Workshop dwarf armies!!
ReplyDeleteMakes me ask if I've done everything I can as a son...and makes me feel a bit old!
Toad; I'm halfway between you, with a close relationshio to one parent and a distance to the other...but - as I've annoyed the last three girlfriends with the constant refrain;
It's only life and it happen to all of us...
I can see why those GFs might be annoyed (grins). It's a perspective, Mav. But I think some of my girlfriends (as in friends who are girls) might say more happens to some than to others. I'm going to hazard a guess you haven't been raped over a three day period - me neither, but one of my friends was.
ReplyDeleteBut honest, wasn't moaning about the parent thing. On the contrary, I'm actually saying it's sad I don't feel the need to. Parents ought to matter - there ought to be a sense of loss when they are gone. There's something wrong somewhere if that loss is missing. I feel a sense of loss at not feeling a sense of loss ... if you see what I mean. (And if you do, could you explain it to me, cos I got lost halfway through writing that).
And I'm sure you did all you could as a son. It's a two-way thing, after all.
But three GFs, eh? What is this charisma you have? Wanna tell us your secret?
Its impossible to know sometimes whether our actions are 'right' in the long run. I never really confided as much as I should have done in my dad, my mum was the chatty one and he just stood and smiled. I did have an opportunity some time before he died when he was recovering from a cataract operation in hospital, to have a sort of one to one with him, which in his brief way told me I was doing the right thing. Something I have realised though is that bad things happen to good people and sometimes it seems (like toads desperately unfortunate friend) that misery and misfortune are meted out in grossly unequal measures. My mum and dad were inseparable and never missed an opportunity to express their love for each other. It coloured my vision of humanity and how people should relate to each other.
ReplyDeleteOne of the saddest things i have ever experienced was my fathers untimely death. At 72, he got up as normal one morning and went to the bathroom. He fell after a clot detached and stopped his heart.Im not sure if my mum was aware of a noise, but she raced up to find him semi concious behind the door. As he was a tall man and the room was tiny, she couldnt open the door and could only reach around the jamb and take his hand. After decades of loving marriage, they were separated at last by a few inches of plywood and unable to say goodbye. My mum never actually talked about it, but I cant begin to comprehend the sense of loss she must have felt at such a situation. Unable to call for help and unwilling to move to the phone fr fear of losing those last minutes.
All his life my father had done his best to support his wife and three children and this is how he was repayed,
Now I tend to have a much more cynical view of the world and take every chance to express exactly what i think and feel in as honest a way as possible, because life is not a rehearsal and sometimes you only get the briefest moments to say and do things, which can mean so much.
pfooh... that's quite a thread I just caught up with. Where I don't think I my own experience would add much to what's already been said. Save to say I do concur wholeheartedly with Wote, in that life is grossly unfair. And if one or both of your parents are still around (literally or figuratively), then I'd say make the most of that fact, so there's no cause for "if only's" after they're gone.
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Paul
Whoa! Commander...the three together go back some 14 years!! I didn't get through them all since last Christmas or something!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd I have my skeletons (I can never spell that!) too, could probably understand your friend more than you think...but; what I was saying is that I seem to have quite a philosophical approach to it all (life, the universe and everything!), maybe as a result of the recently diagnosed Asperger's (no sympathy - it's the bright persons autisem...I'm a closet genius!), or maybe as a result of the things that happen to you making you stronger.
I don't know if you follow Chaos Therory, I don't really but I get the basics; it's a mathamatical model applied to 'Ghia'. If the butterfly flapping it wing beautifully kills you, nothing you can do about it, if it kills the guy next to you, be thankfull.
But...even if you have such a casual view of...er...'fate', it doesn't seem to apply to loved ones, and Wotan's post pulled that centre stage? Causing me to think a bit more than I might normally, about things that matter.
'Fanqued'...Missinterpreted and verbally bitten by a fellow Moonbase fan!!!
Can we talk some more about toys now :)
ReplyDelete"Yes, let's talk toys, please" ... (mutters under her breath) "before I have to slap Mav good and proper."
ReplyDeleteSooooo ...... Corgi Junior Pinafarina or Corgi Rockets Manta? I think the Manta.
Manta for me too, P.T. - or maybe the Pinafarina....oh, why split 'em up, let's go for both! ; D
ReplyDeleteNormal service will be resumed very shortly.
ReplyDeleteHuge thanks everyone for your candid and moving comments.
You're right, Mike. We'll go for both ... long as I get the Manta at the weekends.
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