Dad

This is the little speech I gave at my Dad's funeral earlier this year. I had meant to put it on the blog at the time, but instead hid it in the drawer. So not in the normal run of things...and more for me than anyone else....

I’m sure my Dad…our Dad would be pleased to see the family gathered here today. And typically in our family gatherings I suspect he would be glad to know he is the centre of attention…but on balance would have preferred it if he could have had a raucous sing song whilst drinking that strange combination of whiskey and orange squash. A drink I once tried but only once.

When coming to write this I realised that there was a lot to say, but not really much time to say it. And that is true of life itself. There is too little time…we all here have got to whatever age we are now faster than we expected…and that was true for Dad too. He retained a youthful and mischievous glimmer in his eye even though age and illness took its toll in recent years.

I think a father’s role is to inspire through his own successes buy also through his weaknesses as well. I think Dad did both in good measure. In the areas where Dad was great I have been inspired, and where there were flaws, I have learnt. Today I just want to mention a few things that shape my memories of Dad’s life.

It has come as a surprise to be standing here today…and I have to say not least because even to the end, Dad insisted he was fat …and forty.

You Jean, Sheila and Dermot will know better than I how hard life was when you were all young. Dad used to tell the story from those times of how he used to steal the evaporated milk by making a pin hole in the bottom of the tin and sucking out the contents. Evidently Nanny Bowman could never work out why the tins she bought were always half empty. It was always a story told with affection…I truly believe that he understood that what ever the deprivations of his childhood, they were good family times.

He was a very generous person. I remember lavish Christmases…always a present or two in the morning, a much anticipated table present over dinner and then the excitement of handing out the presents when everyone had gathered in the afternoon. These were good Christmases and as I have grown up, I have missed the large family gatherings. But it wasn’t just at Christmas that Dad showed his generosity. At many other times when someone was in need, he did not hesitate to help them out.

I remember Christmases for another reason...it was a time for Dad to take centre stage and sing one favourite or another. He may not have been Mario Lanza…but he certainly aspired to it. He could be the life and soul of any gathering. And, as I understand it, that was quite an achievement for someone who was really quite a shy person at heart.

Although Dad was often absent as Kevin and I grew up there can be no doubt that he loved and cared for both of us immeasurably. And I believe we have learnt from that experience – and become very involved fathers to our own children. It is a role we love and enjoy every moment of every day.

Dad was full of surprises. You can imagine the surprise when Dad took me up to his new home in Leek for the first time and there was a lady there…never previously mentioned. If I remember rightly she was simply introduced as Doreen. His ability to surprise never left him. It was, after all, just eight weeks ago that over the telephone he announced “I’m married”…something that perhaps he could have mentioned four or so years ago. But that was Dad…and it brings a smile.

At work Dad has been an inspiration. From the shop floor he worked his way up and into the Board room. In those times, that was a remarkable achievement particularly in a family owned and managed company.

Cooking was one of those things that Dad enjoyed, and somewhere that his talents brought joy to others. Favourite dishes were scampi wrapped in bacon and ham cornets. Always a pleasure and a treat. For me it was a shame that in later years he lost his cordon bleu skills…and perhaps more of a shame as Fred here will testify is that he didn’t manage to transfer his expertise in the kitchen to me. That is not to say that he lost his love of food...because he didn’t…even if favourite food became Mr Kiplings Almond Slices.

I don’t know anyone else whose father has built a boat to take the family on holiday. The Norfolk Broads were a firm favourite…and I well remember one son being plucked from the water having fallen in trying to catch a dead fish, and the other son being rescued having sunk into the muddy banks up to his knees and beyond. They were fine holidays.

Dad was a caravaner. There were holidays to the South West and others to the Lake Districts. I do though think he took it to the extreme when he first came up to Stoke on Trent, and the caravan became his home.

Dad spent many hours playing cards…one form of patience or another. As he got on I noticed the rules seemed to change or perhaps he tended to cheat a little more…but I don’t think we begrudge him that do we?

But I just want to return to that drink of whiskey and orange squash. The one time I tried it was after O levels, I persuaded him that we wanted to give one of our teachers a bottle of whiskey to thank him for everything he had done for us. Instead, of course it was for a school boy’s party. I managed half the bottle mixed with squash and have regretted it ever since. I suspect Dad knew the bottle was not destined for a teacher, but chose to indulge me and turn a blind eye to the misdemeanour. He was good at that – and it’s been a lesson to me to know when to indulge and also when to turn a blind eye. It’s quite a skill to have learnt.

In his later years, Dad knew his time was drawing to an end…but that didn’t stop him fighting with the same determination. For him life was a journey and he travelled well.

Jingle bells

Christmas is a coming. The season starts for me 1st December it's on that day that I stop changing channels whenever a Christmas advert, that's been showing since August, comes on the TV. Actually, all those impossibly glamorous ads for the latest perfumes and aftershaves means that the turkeys should start feeling nervous. Equally the countdown to the holiday ads which start on Boxing Day also begins. So the excitement begins to build...especilly as it seems this year we'll be having flurries of snow throughout December.

We'll get our office Xmas tree from the very fabulous Borough Market at a price which is about double what anyone with any sense of reason or fairness (or credit crunch) would charge for it, but it'll look lovely once we've put the lights and (corporate orange) baubles on it.

At home the Xmas Decs will go up around the fifteenth of the month...Brighton has a very unsophisticated 6' fibre optic tree which kinda catches the spirit of the season, but in Buckhurst Hill there just isn't room for a tree, so we throw some sparkly lights on the bushes which I've done my utmost to kill this year...inability rather than anything deliberate you understand of course, I hope.

Today, whilst trying to find my way to Cavendish Square, being guided by a satnav which has little sense of direction, and certainly doesn't know its left from its right, I ended up somewhere between Piccadilly and Soho, ducking under some gargantuan snow men hung across the streets. Which was nice. And then turned into Regent Street, where the Christmas lights are a beautiful series of twinkling spiderswebs. Fabulous.

I love Christmas...secretly I still believe in Santa Claus, love the Christmas lights and remain convinced that there will be six inches of snow when I wake up on the 25th, and relive happy childhood memories of large family gatherings which just seemed to go on and on and on.

But this year, Christmas has become a bit of a challenge...for the last four years, the boy and I have dutifully trecked down to Llantrisant to spend time with The Wicked Witch of the West. It seems only fair that if TWWOTW has lost her daughter, then grandson should be there. And the boy has always enjoyed going. The first couple of year's the boy's sister deigned to honour us with her company, so it was a good family gathering for the two of them. But the sister has singularly failed to keep in touch with "itttle bruvva", almost since they were separated and she went off to live with her father whilst the boy came to me. And she is less and less inclined to come across to the Christmas celebrations.

Equally as time has gone on, I've felt more and more like a rasher of bacon at a Jewish wedding (sorry, not PC - please suggest acceptable alternative)...not that I'm not welcomed with open arms, its just that they didn't speak to me for five years from the onset of divorce procedings until the day that the brain haemorrhage struck down the boy's mum. So it's always a little uncomfortable (my problem, not their's)

And then last year, after a day of doing nothing but watching TV (apart from a couple of hours when I escaped for a very long walk by myself), I vowed not to spend the day in Wales again.

Which went down like a lead balloon when I told them ("Well you're always welcome you know"), but the boy merely shrugged his shoulders when I started dropping hints about nine months ago. And he's right, it's my decision not his...but some guidance would help.

So all well and good providing we have a good alternative. But we don't. I haven;'t got a Plan B, let alone a Plan A.

At one stage I thought we might get to ski for Christmas...but tightening of belts and declining business haven't allowed for that

And there's a high risk of the boy and I in Brighton entertaining ourselves for Christmas Day. And even I know that's not good.

So either I swallow my pride, make the arrangements to go west, or spend a day full of guilt-ridden angst...now which should it be?

It's cold outside

Oh no, tomorrow is Saturday, and it's the last home match of the season, so I'm duty bound to stand watching thirty boys running around chasing an odd-shaped ball for an hour.

Not that I'm not interested.

Not that I'm not fearsomely proud of the Boy being in the first fifteen (I never had the drive, skill, enthusiasm and determination, let alone the motivation).

Not that I won't be cheering him and the rest of the team on.

No. It's just that it's bloody wet and freezing out there.

Still, Bancrofts is renowned for putting on the best post-match food.

And yes, I'm tired, selfish and grumpy today.

Life through a lens/Sureality

The unfolding events in Mumbai (called me old fashioned, but I'm afraid I still have to translate that back to Bombay, in the same way, Beijing sticks in my head as Peking...however Rhodesia has made the transition to Zimbabwe) are truly shocking, and today I've been following it on the live text feed on Sky News, whilst generally avoiding work. In amongst the regular updates on bombs, fires, hostage taking, death and destruction has been the effect on the cricket...will England stay, if so where will the next test take place and so on. Now I do appreciate that cricket is almost a religion in India, but equally I think that whether the cricket goes ahead or not probably shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as how many people have been slaughtered. Perhaps I'm wrong.

On a different level altogether (and I appreciate I might be accused of some hypocrisy here), the route I cycle in to the office is a lovely main road through Epping Forest. The local council has taken it upon themselves to clear the path between the road and the forest of fallen leaves...and you can imagine that at this time of year there are a fair number of them. And the way they do it is to sweep up the leaves into big plastic bags, which are left at the roadside for collection at a later date. The logic of this defies me completely...surely, you'd simply sweep the leaves into the forest (there's no physical barrier to stop this) to nourish the grounsd, and do all those things that would happen in the normal cycle of plant life. I keep meaning to take a picture as I ride past, but keep forgetting...so sorry about that.

On the job

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in a judging session at the Royal College of Art, for a competition that we're involved in - Toyota are launching a rather fab city car, the iQ, in January and have teamed up with the RCA to challenge students to come up with ideas that embody the concept of 'intelligent urban living'. Some of the ideas are weird, some whacky and some excellent...but I can't reveal anything for fear of getting into trouble. I was surrounded by some of the cleverest design experts in the country, and the atmosphere was quite rarefied. I should point out that I was an observer, rather than a judge. Nonetheless I found it very exciting.

But what occured to me was that, when I was 13 there was no way I could ever have predicted or imagined that one day I would be sitting in an office in the leading institution of its kind looking at newly-borne ideas that could potentially change our world. Regularly I sit in meetings surprised to be where I am, and wondering how I got there. I'm not sure what I thought I would be doing now when I was 13...I suspect my vision didn't extend much beyond the sixth form, perhaps to university...but I'm sure no further.

At the moment the boy has his career ideas firmly fixed on MI5 or MI6...a combination of too much James Bond, and me telling him that he can go in the Army Cadets but woe betide him if he thought he was going to put on a military uniform once he leaves the school cloisters. I'm still hoping that, as predicted by a fortune teller before he was born, he will end up as a marine biologist...and that he'll spend his time in some tropical paradise amongst the fish and coral.

I suspect, though, that we'll both be wrong and he'll do some unimaginable jobs, which probably don't yet exist. I find that quite exciting.

Six things

Well the lovely Rosiero tagged me to reveal six things that make me happy, and six things that are interesting. I've found it quite tough, but here goes:

Things that make me happy

1. Snow. I would like it to be snowy every day of winter and for it never to turn slushy. Of course it’s even better if it’s on a mountain

2. Smokey pubs, especially while drinking a glass of Strathisla whisky. I know they don't exist anymore, and I hate smoking with a passion. But pubs are supposed to be smokey and smell of stale beer.

3. The boy – nothing comes close (of course). Every moment of every day

4. Rollerblading - when I can on a Wednesday or Friday night with up to 500 other skaters round the streets of London

5. The roof down on the car, especially when it's a moonlight night, and better still if it's snowing

6.Time to myself. It doesn't happen very often, so I revel in it. But all things in small doses

Six interesting things

1. I’ve skied with a murderer – a very sad tale, but if you Google Gordon Wood and Caroline Byrne, you’ll see he’s just been convicted of throwing her off a cliff. He was hiding in Megeve, which is where we go skiing, and he used to take pictures of and for the Boy and I on the piste

2. My wife and I met and married in 99 days. According to friends, when we met there was an audible resonance when our eyes first met.. We had just two people at our wedding, and no honeymoon. We never looked back until we divorced. Five years and five days later. (Actually it was six days, but that doesn’t quite work as well)

3. I once went to collect a plain brown envelope from a penthouse in Hyde Park. In the envelope was £20,000 to stop my then girlfriend bringing a court case for sexual harassment. Another way of describing it was that I slept with a woman who had slept with the father of the man who was sleeping with the (then) future queen of England

4. My plan for when I give up work (which will be in about two weeks if the economy keeps going as it is) is to visit every UN World Heritage site – there’s nigh on a thousand of them. Kind of a ‘Greatest Hits’ Tour. If I’m clever I’ll write a book on it, but I suspect I won’t be!

5. I have a Cilla Black greatest hits CD which I adore. Fortunately the rest of my music collection consists of Foo Fighters, Stereophonics, Kings of Leon, Duffy, Killers, Editors, Manic Street Porters, Lloyd Cole and so on. Plus Englebert Humperdink

6. I've bee kissed by a German cow. In my year between school and university I worked in Oberjoch, a village in the German alps. I spent my afternoons climbing, and one day lay down for a snooze in a field. I was woken by a cow licking my face

Now I think I'm supposed to nominate six more folks...but I'm iot sure who or how, so have patience....

Unforgetable

There are a few things that I might forget as I and the boy get older so I thought I'd put them down here:

1.When he was a wee bairn, he never sneezed; he pinged
2.When he was a mere six hours old, being held by his mum, he peed in an immaculate arc straight into said mum's handbag
3. He got stung by a bee on the beach and fell asleep; he ran into a door, broke his nose and fell asleep; when he was half-way born he fell asleep
4. He learnt to ride a bike from first getting on to riding off by himself with no stabilisers in two and a half hours
5. The first time he had Coca Cola was at Liverpool st station; the bubbles went straight up his nose
6. His first ice cream was a 99 at Kew Gardens; he wasn't expecting it to be cold
7. His first denim jacket which would just about fit a teddy bear; I still have it
8. His first night he slept on my chest whilst I gazed in awe
9. He ate so many strawberries one day that his face looked like one
10. He used to drink the gravy from the boat if we didn't keep an eye on him
11. He used to snuggle into my bed at 5 in the morning
12. He used to have a little plastic cat with wheels for back legs that he carried everywhere
13. His first step was taken in Brighton New Years Eve Eve
14. A wave nearly washed him away on the promenade in Brighton and we've never had a storm like it again
15. He used to jiggle his legs when sitting down. The last time his mum told him off, it was about jiggling his legs. He stopped doing it until six months ago.

Nights in White Satin (3)

Laundered and ironed sheets, pillow case and duvet cover together with damp pillow (slight staining remaining) miraculously re-appeared on the doorstep before I got home tonight. Accompanying note: "Thanks for Saturday night - 1 port too many I think!!!"

Friends....

Nights in White Satin (2)

With my memory slowly returning...I felt compelled to add the school song we sang after the meal. I'm putting it down EXACTLY as it appeared in the programme...so I hope you can see why we all collapsed into giggles half way through:

Floreat Bancroftia,
Floreamus pueri,
Vivat et memoria,
Fundatoris nostril
Nobis in aeternum,
Magni sint honores,
Floreat Bancroftia,
Floreant rectores

The printer doesn't appear to be a latin scholar, but clearly has a nose for business!.

And the photo is simply to show what happens when you let someone who can't speak a language produce something in that language...

Nights in white satin

I read somewhere recently about the challenges of the etiquette of what to do with the bed linen when you stay with someone. At the end of the stay, should you make the bed? Surely not because that implies the host will leave the same sheets on for the next guests. Should you leave it un-made? No because that implies you are slovenly. Oh the dilema. Well, there's a third option:

Saturday night was the Old Boys annual dinner, so I had a couple of Old Boy friends (I don't mean old boyfriends, quite a different thing altogether) to stay as they live a distance, and we are within a few hundred yards of the school...yes the boy goes to the same school that I used to. The evening started well...the boy was going off to a friend's party and was staying over with a mate, leaving the big Old Boys to relive old memories. First OB arrived, and momentarily got confused thinking the boy was me...the first of three times last night that the uncanny resemblence betwen the boy and I was commented on. With the second OB here, we had a quick snifter before setting off. Them a 'girly beer' - a little bottle of 33...and me a shot of finest bourbon. On arrival, we had first one beer, then a second before proceeding to the dining hall to enjoy a fine meal cooked in the school kitchen - it really was tasty. The meal was, of course accompanied by wine. Erm several glasses and then port passed to the left with the cheese. We managed to finish two bottles. Afterwards we retired to the bar, and I'm confident that by this stage my conversations with the headmistress and the games master and the german teacher (she's english) will substantially enhance the boy's school career...oops. Another couple of beers were downed before we walked in a straight line home. Where it was time for a night cap. And then another. I think my light was tured off at 4.00am. To put this in context, I can and do often go for weeks without a drop of alcohol passing my lips.

I arose mid-morning to find that OB1 had left having made his bed. Now I know what he thinks of me. OB2 had also left. But there was something missing from the room. The towels, the sheets, the duvet cover, the pillow case and the pillow itself. I'm sure the mystery will be revealed. I think I might know the answer already. But I don't want to think about it.

And when the boy rematerialised, he asked if I'd had a good night. I kind of groaned to which I got the response, "Well if you can't remember it must have been good." Oh dear perhaps I've been teaching him all the wrong things....

I'm no good

I've done a truly terrible thing.

I've taken the boy's laptop away from him.

What I hadn't realised was that this is the equivalent of making Amy Winehouse go cold turkey.

For me a computer is just something to write my blog on, watch iplayer, listen to itunes, play a few rounds of solitaire, check office e-mails. So if I couldn't use it, it would be a shame, I'd miss it, but it would be no more of an issue than if the TV went on the blink.

What I didn't appreciate is that the lap top is the boy's primary means of communicating with friends, near and far, and by not having the use of his Dell, I was effectively ostracising him from society. Judging by the reaction I got, summarily chopping off his legs with a bent rusty butter knife would have been less painful and more appropriate. The promises freely given in absolute desperation to keep this device sent me reeling - and the comparison with Ms Winehouse's addiction seems entirley appropriate...I wonder what she would promise for the next hit.

So suddenly the punishment seems somewhat disproportionate to the crime, but I'm not sure of a route back. Supper tonight should be fun...uuurgh

Do you wanna touch?

"World of Warcraft is the worlds biggest peadophile ring" said the boy when the second episode (?) instalment (?) was announced on the radio news this morning (we wake to either Q radio or Absolute Extreme, so sometimes minor economic or poltical matters get pushed down the agenda). Naturally enough, I coughed and spluttered into my porridge and tried to think of an appropriate reply, but at 7.00am and even before I had my wake up shower, I could manage no more than a "Err, right. Yeah sure."

Somehow, I feel this wasn't the response required, but equally I suspect that I've missed my moment. I certainly would love to know where this playground comment came from.

And who knows, whether he's right or wrong...much of the on-line world is a mystery to me...but having read on the news today that a woman is divorcing her husband after she caught him cheating on her in a 3D virtual world, I have a feeling that I need to be much more on the ball than I am. I did discover that if you child has been using a website called hidemyprivacy.com, then they're probably seeing things or doing things that they shouldn't.

The boy does manage to produce really good grades for his homework even though he seems to be on-line messaging friends with one hand whilst he does a maths equation with the other. So I guess on-line is not all bad for teens...but for a parent it does add another worry, to the already extensive list.

So into battle...

Schools out

Last night was School House family evening. And a jolly affair it was too. The evening takes the form of a series of performances followed by food and delights, topped off with a rather fabulous fireworks display thanks to Mr and Mrs Patel (evidently).

I was immeasurably impressed by some of the talent...and where the performers lacked talent, they more than made up for it with enthusiasm. I think my X Factor vote went to the Turkish belly dancer, who not only made more than a few middle-aged parents look distinctly uncomfortable - should they watch or should they politely avert their eyes...but also managed to keep move perfect even when the music system decided to give up the ghost. But there were also plenty of excellent pianists, actors, rock bands and soloists (though I couldn't quite go for the admittedly extremely good renditions of songs from The Little Mermaid and Pochahontas).

Inspite of a natural talent for playing the guitar (evidence enough that his musically inept mum and dad are in fact not his parents), the boy had other priorities - running one of the stalls selling sweets (how many should you buy and be seen to be eating before you just can't face another penny chew...).

Loosely speaking, the evening was the themed around around fairytales, so one of the stalls was 'Pin the wings on the err fairy whilst blindfolded' The fairy as it happens was a photo of The Boy which seems to have taken him and his mate about three hours to take at the weekend. Whilst most people couldn't get within a mile of the 'spot', uncannily I managed it straight offf...and for my prize I got (oh no) another sweet. mmm delicious.

His third contribution was giving lessons on his X-board. It seemed to down well, so I kept my "Public liability insurance?" down to a mutter.

Thank heavens for the fabulous fireworks, as our own display on the 5th consisted of no more than half a dozen sparklers in the back garden.

Well that's it...I enjoyed it all.

Friend of Ours

Death and divorce can bring some unlikely friends into your sphere.

And so it was that tonight we went to see Quantum of Solace with Unexpected Friend. In fact we went to see the last 007 movie with him. Unfortunately on that occasion it was a screen we'd never been to before and it turned out to be on a decaying industrial estate in the arse-end of Lee Valley (near to the site of our grand 2012 Olympics) and was preceeded by visiting the next-door themed-eatery that clearly was operated by people that didn't realise that a restaurant should generally serve edible food. Even the 'it's impossible not to get wrongt' Caesar Salad was completely indigestible. This time we went from east to west, ending up in Fulham Broadway, enjoyed a very entertaining movie before retiring to Yo Sushi to eat our fill. All very good.

Unexpected Friend is a nice person...in fact a good friend, and indeed it's always a very pleasent time we have when we see him. And he is the sort of person that I think in times of need we could rely on to provide support.

So that to me is a good friend.

But the thing is, Unexpected Friend was The Boy's Mum's long-term partner after she and I explosively went our separate ways. And without question at the time I was portrayed as the Devil incarnate, so on the few occasions when we came face to face never a word was spoken. He and The Boy's Mum were together for a couple of years I think...and then (explosively) went their separate ways (in the words of the prodigal Godfather..."With her it's always bloody). And of course that had meant that for two years Unexpected Friend was AN IMPORTANT MAN in the boy's life, but after the split he had become one of the disappeared.

Roll on to the time of the funeral and beyond, and he re-appeared. And this was a good thing...I wanted the boy to have as much continuity in his life and felt UF was an important anchor, so have since encouraged the contact. I know the boy was happy with this...UF is a cognescenti of the gadget world..so was able to talk about the things important to a growing lad.

And so it has continued, and I'm very pleased. But here's a strange thing. The boy refuses to make arrangements to see UF and insists it is down to me to do. I've asked why, but I've got no answer to my question. I know the boy likes to see him...and enjoys his company, but is reluctant, or at least hesitant to keep the communication flowing. Quite confusing....