Dad

Dad was a rock Mum would say, then muddle the metaphor by adding that she worshipped the ground he walked on.

Rock was a good description of him. He was large; six foot two and a half by his own calculation, and heavy, 16 stone and mounting as the years went by.

He was quiet. Read the newspaper or big, thick books at breakfast and the dinner table, only pausing to peer over his glasses, clear his throat and say " I beg your pardon" when addressed.

He would make his opinion felt, however, when he thought it needed to be. For example, he once thumped the table so hard with his fist that it shook when he wanted my brother to get his hair cut.

And he could be quite locquacious when it came to talking to me about physics, the universe and all that. He admired and read books by Fred Hoyle and Isaac Asimov. A lover of science and learning, he bought my brother a gyroscope and showed me how to make a moebus strip. Though not just science ; he took us on day trips to castles, stately homes, up mountains, into areas of outstanding natural beauty, usually without telling us where we were going first, so it always felt like a magical mystery tour.

I have two abiding visual memories of him, well more, but these come to mind most often; the first when he dismounted his motorbike calmly, walked over to the "bloody idiot" who had pulled out on us, causing him to swerve and me to fall off, and planted his fist firmly on the offender's jaw, causing him to fall to the floor as in a cartoon. Not funny, I know, but memorable. The second image is of him standing in the back kitchen doorway, holding his left hand up with his right, blood pouring over the two of them and saying quietly to me " get us a tea towel love" when he'd severed the end of his index finger on his bandsaw. Tea towel placed over the wound, taxi rung for the hospital, he asked me if I'd go and try to find the end of his finger in amongst the wood shavings. When I went in to try to retrieve it, there was the loveliest chess board in the making on the workbench, sadly, no finger tip to be seen.

All this and more from a man who had been born into a poor family at the close of the twenties, whose father died when he was two. We never met one member of his family, not even his mother, though I have two photographs of his brother; one in army uniform in Australia, the other dressed smartly as a batman when he got promoted to look after an officer. The rumour was that my grandmother joined him in Australia and that was the last my Dad saw of them both. A familiar war time story I think.

So my Dad was a also a bit of a dark horse, but a steady, hard-working dependable father to us and an emotional rock to my emotional mother.

And he was a man of so many talents, though driving was not one of them, which may have seemed ironic to some, since he worked at Fords.

 He'd started at Fords, just as they began to build the factory. A "coach builder" by trade, though I'm not sure where he served his apprenticeship. I know his first job was in the export office in the docks at Liverpool, then, after a stint at the council, he ended up working for Hawker Siddeley making aircraft bodies, so that's probably where he served his time. He was obviously clever and rose to be foreman in the press shop, then later foreman of quality control. I know he was highly thought of by his workmates because there was a huge turnout at his retirement do and they were all at pains to tell me how they'd enjoyed working with him. He was often described as a Burl Ives figure, calm, tolerant, fatherly and fair. The men he worked with all had other projects of their own that they worked on when work was slow, usually making things to sell like terrariums, carvings, metal signs etc, anything that could make use of materials and tools available at work and he would turn a blind eye to this as long as they got their proper work done. properly.  For his part, Dad would make, amongst other things, beautiful scale models of wooden carts in the workshop he'd created in our garage at home and get some of his work mates to fashion the tiny metal finishings for them. They were perfect replicas in every detail. I used to marvel at how his big stubby fingers could create such intricate things.

He worked for thirty years or more at Ford's, but he didn't buy a Ford car until very near his retirement . In fact, he didn't buy a proper car until I was ready to learn to drive. He started off with a moped, a step up from his push bike we all thought. Then he got a small Honda motorbike which I used to enjoy riding pillion on most Saturdays over the Runcorn to Widnes bridge, accompanying him as he collected money for the Spastics Society as it was then known; his little side-line which earned him a few shillings in commission. One day, he came home with a massive Triumph motorbike and sidecar and the fun began. We were all very excited about the prospects of travel and even the dog would happily jump in the covered car to go for a spin. We toured the North Wales coast each summer and autumn weekend, only stopping when it got so cold that my dad and whoever drew the short straw to ride pillion couldn't walk properly at the end of the journey. Then came the embarrassing three wheeler Robins - first a van and then a car. I was too young to know how daft these looked and enjoyed the cameraderie of other Reliant owners tooting their horns and waving at you as you rattled and bumped along in them. Only now do I appreciate how humiliating this must have been for my Dad to park in Ford's car park. It took me many years to realise that he just couldn't pass his driving test and since you were allowed to drive the Reliants on a motorbike licence, this was the nearest we were going to get to a car for some time.

I don't recall my Dad ever having a driving lesson, so it wasn't really surprising he couldn't pass his test. By the time he did pass his test, he must have driven hundreds of miles on the motorbikes and in the Reliants because he had taken us all over the country on and in them. The legend goes that the inspector who passed him made him pull over and stop the car mid-test to announce " Mr K. you can obviously drive a car, so can I suggest to you that you take a few deep breaths, calm down and drive me back to the test station because I am going to pass you. " Whereupon, according to this legend, my Dad drove perfectly all the way back.

Having the longed-for licence, the first car my dad ever bought was one he'd always talked about; a Wolseley. Like the motorbike and sidecar, he arrived home with it out of the blue and caused a great commotion. I think he must have had a win on the horses because it was so extravagant and unaffordable for us. He probably just fancied a little taste of luxury for a change and to celebrate passing his test. It was a shame that I was just of an age to learn to drive because this was a big heavy car, difficult to manoevre, however, my uncle was determined I should learn in it and took me out driving every Sunday until I was confident to get to Liverpool and back. It's illustrative of the time (mid seventies) that when I declared I was going to put in for my test, my Dad said he had to change the car because he couldn't afford to insure me. It seems I'd been driving uninsured for months on end.

He traded the beautiful, luxurious Wolsely in for a nasty tin can of an Astra with a gaudy metallic lime green paint job. We were all mortified. Two things ensued : I scraped its side all along a lamp post whilst practising my reversing, leaving a visible residue of lime green paint on the concrete post. Then, I was asked to reverse around the very same corner on my test, so that as I did so, the luminous smear on the lamp post was clearly visible to me and, I was sure, the examiner as I made another inept attempt at it.

Needless to say, I failed my test.

Driving was a dislike my Dad and I shared amongst so many other characteristics and interests. It's him that I have my interest in and understanding of gardening to thank for. He like to raise plants from seed and he gave me a tray of coleus seeds to nurture when I was about 10, telling me they were hard to grow so I had to tend them properly. I can't remember whether I was successful or not, but I do remember marvelling at the tiny plants as they emerged from the soil and thinking how magical it was and it did the intended trick of giving me the gardening bug. I happily pruned, weeded and mowed the front garden according to his instructions, enjoying his praise as well as the effect. He created a beautiful garden in every place he lived. When I bought my first home with my partner, a little terraced house with a raised stone area at the front, he made wooden planters for it, filling them with beautiful flowers so that the grey Yorkshire stone was instantly cheered by the gorgeous array of marigolds, Snap Dragons and lobelia. Our back garden in the house I grew up in was crammed with flowers, shrubs and fruit; blackberries covered the garage wall, alpine strawberries grew amongst the flowers, a quince cascaded over the sand pit and gooseberries lined the path in and amongst the roses.

Even before he got a greenhouse, he would grow tomatoes, filling every window sill downstairs with the stroppy, pungent plants and lining the fruits up along the glass to ripen. When he retired he bought a green house and grew flowers from seed in it which he planted up in hanging baskets and planters then sold from the front of his bungalow. With the help of a friend, he extended his garage and turned it into a workshop for creating anything out of wood; fences, bowls, mushrooms, toys, money boxes, ornate shelves etc. His dove-tail joints were exquisite. Lids to boxes fitted perfectly. The rejects he gave to me usually only failed due to the wood drying unevenly and splitting. His output was phenomenal because he was desperate to supplement his pension since he took early retirement after my mum died which he couldn't really afford to do.

It was a heartbreaking sight to see the boxes of beautifully crafted finished wooden items lined up ready to sell at craft fayres in the hall of his bungalow after he died suddenly in his mid sixties. Clearing out his books, records, photography equipment, tools and all the things he'd made was a painful, but wonderful reminder of how many things he had enjoyed and how much of this enjoyment he had passed on to me and my brother.

I am grateful that he was here to see the birth of my two children, to influence my son in his first six years and to enjoy my daughter for eighteen months. They both share his love of nature and enjoyment of photography, along with a kind of perfectionism that stems from wanting to do things well. My son inherited his serious thoughtfulness, underpinned by a sardonic sense of humour. In my daughter, I can see his patience and stoicism.  I think of my Dad whenever I feel pride in my son and daughter, which is often.

It's an obvious thing to say, but the death of your parents marks a significant change in your psyche. It's something you might dread as a child, believing life would be unbearable without them. As you become an adult, feelings evolve, and mine became very complex. When my mum died, I was in my mid twenties and I was shocked and sad, but not traumatised. I've decided this was partly because she had talked a lot about death in her life and seemed at ease with it, but also because she felt so much a part of me, it was as if I'd absorbed her somehow in a way that meant I felt she was still with me, even after her death. I was also sheilded from feeling alone because of Dad being around. With his death, I was adrift. We don't describe adults who have lost their parents as orphans, we are supposed to grow into independent adults, but if you feel that your parents formed the foundation of your life, possibly even the core of your personality, their death can feel shattering. With his passing, it felt as if the ground gave way under me and I hope it doesn't sound mawkish to say I've had to walk a long way over new terrain to regain my footing.

So rock it seems he was. I conclude that for all the sentimentality in saying so, I have to agree with my mum.

Ridiculous

Going through life ridiculous,
Feeling like a clown on a bike,
All my ungainly limbs
akimbo as we speak.

Facial muscles fail me,
They don't correspond
with my thoughts,
Nor compliment my sentiments.

The words we utter
neither seem to serve .
They run from our mouths
and fall in front of us.

What is it we want ?
Is it accuracy ?
Specificity ? An impressive
appearance of aptitude?

Even our intentions are elusive.
This wanting or lamenting
will lead us nowhere if
we let them run away with us.

Then we'll trip and fall,
And fall again,
Lurching through life
and all its puddles,
Till we come to its full stop.

Abstraction

                                             

Sometimes words lie between us,
ones unsaid,
others which cannot be unsaid.

We learn to speak by watching our mother's mouth,
gazing at her face and listening
to the sounds in the air around us.

Each thing has a label attached,
waiting for it to be uttered
and so become real,

and when we learn to recognise
those things that have been labelled,
as with love
and hate,

we pass through the door
to elements concrete.

I look at titles before content,
glancing only sideways at first
towards the elements on view.
It gives you an idea
to hold on to.

Helen Keller knew the nature of water,
even before her teacher showed her
the sign.
I hope she never lost her sense
of smell or touch
as she got old.
Still, maybe all that naming of the parts
would have formed some solid notion
of the nature of things
inside her head,
and she wouldn't have been cast adrift again,
but been able to grasp the memory of things
and know the compensation
of ideas.

You have to jump off a building
to see things properly.
metaphorically speaking.
Let yourself go and fall free.
The restraint of a page,
or a frame,
will sustain you,
save you from complete obliteration,
so to speak,


but God help you if
you ever decide
to make
a piece
of
sculpture.