The Weekend Post
3rd April
1985.
Dear dad.
That’s you just
gone. Wish I’d had the chance to say goodbye properly. I know yesterday you
hinted that you’d be gone before I got there...but I wished you’d stayed awhile
longer. I so wanted to have one more conversation with you, to reminisce over
good times.
Like weekends;
Saturday morning spent watching Swap Shop on TV, while you shaved in the
kitchen wearing your white vest. Watching as you cleaned and put your teeth in.
I thought all men had false teeth as I only ever knew you with yours. Both of us lying on the living room floor
picking horses from the paper, you’d give me a spare betting slip so I could
pick my own. I always like the pretty colours the jockeys wore but you said
that wasn’t the way to pick a good bet.
The betting shop
was on route to your works social club, where you spent many Saturday
afternoon. Once we reached there I had to stand outside, as under 18’s weren’t
allowed in. I’d peek through the letterbox unable to see anything, my ears straining
to hear a TV’s rendition of the 12.30 at Newmarket. Once the bets were placed we
walked to the club, my two steps to your one stride.
The club was
smoky. It smelled of beer. I stood by the TV room door waiting for my bottle of
coke and crisps. Once you let me stand beside you at the fruit machine until I
pressed the spin button just before you held the two bars, the third bar
dropped and you lost a fiver. The TV room with Grandstand is where I was sent.
If I was lucky
you’d let me to go upstairs to the snooker room. The large green table
dominated the dusty space. You taught me
how to play and dismissed the rule about a foot always touching the floor.
However you did insist I had to keep one on my beer crate step.
On the way home,
I thought it was great how you’d open the sliding door to your workmate Don’s
campervan and ring the old school bell he had in there, while tootling around
town with YMCA playing on tape.
You brought
cockles from the fish market for me to eat from the bag. Crab sarnies at home
and eating the meat from the claw with a cocktail stick. All washed down with
eggymilk. We were the only ones in the family that like it. I’d hear the buzzing
of the hand mixer from in the kitchen knowing that our special drink was on its
way. It was the very same hand mixer that you used to show how not having
respect for machines could end up in accidents. I had been scared of the
machinery in the metalwork room at school. We’d been shown photographs of
pupils who had had chunks of hair caught up in drills and lathes and had to
have it cut off. Scarred heads stuck in my mind and I was scared to go back.
Using strips of newspaper you showed me how it got tangled up in the turning
blades. I always wore my hair fastened back after that. You were proud of my
CSE in metalwork.
It makes me
laugh that you would make me eggymilk and I always mashed your tea. The theme tune
from the program M.A.S.H echoing from the telly and you shaking your mug,
called to arms your daughter, your personal tea masher, to provide you with
that much loved mug o tea. Only I knew
just how you liked it and had been doing the honour since I could reach the
kettle.
With you in your
favourite chair and me curled up on the settee we’d watch the football results,
ticking off boxes on the pools coupon. Wearing your green knitted cardie that
mum made you. Your smoking cardie! You always wore it when you were in the
house. That fusty smoky smell would be a comfort to me when bullies stole my 10
pence and my teacher sent you a letter. You cradled me in your arms and told me
everything would be ok.
At bedtime I’d
lie silently in bed, pretending to be asleep. Knowing that at 11 o’clock after
mum went to bed you’d come get me, carry me downstairs and we’d curl up on your
chair watching the detective Ellery Queen. I’m sure my love of detective
programs came from this and Basil Rathbones version of Sherlock Holmes.
And then on
Sunday morning be awakened by the big band sound vibrating the blankets off my
sleepy head. You loved Glen Miller and as a result of having it penetrate
through the ceiling, my bed and my sleep...so do I. Then you treated me to the
sponge awakening. The cruel trick of lifting the blanket and placing a wet
sponge on me, covering me again and then waiting! Minutes later laughing as I
leapt out of bed soaked.
Downstairs, you were
in your favourite chair, the Sunday Mirror in one hand, cigarette in the other
listening to Terry Wogan on radio Two. Mum hoovering in the front room and the
smell of Sunday dinner wafting from the kitchen.
At 1o’clock we’d
sit in front of the telly to watch Space 1999 and Road Runner. Dinner was
served plate-on-tray style with gravy poured from a plastic jug. You were a
meat and veg man, a traditional Sunday roast. We’d share the skin off mums’
rice pudding and always go back for more. The choice of two films greeted us
after dinner, John Wayne one BBC1, James Bond on ITV. Sunday telly was always boring till Dr Who or
Star trek came on at teatime. But I loved sitting watching old movies with you.
If the weather
was nice we’d be in the garden. Not a particular talented gardener, grass and
hedge cutting your speciality. Except of course your tomatoes, grown in the
greenhouse you made from old window frames and plastic. With a mirrored
wardrobe door as entry, you even left the mirror in it. Making things from odd
items is where I think your talent lay. My favourite would be the shower you
made. An L shaped bit of wood screwed to the wall, a hosepipe attached to it,
with sucky things for the taps on one end and a watering-can rose on the other.
It was great and worked well, even if we did have to put the water heater on
for ages before hand. I think that’s
where my creativity came from.
I still have the
photo of you hanging upside down out of the large cherry tree at the top of the
garden. You’d climbed up to trim some branches but as usual you monkeyed
around. Kath next door got the snapshot. It reminds of how un-serious you could
take the world. On those rare occasions the world allowed you to.
Back indoors,
the TV off button was pressed just before Songs of Praise came on. Cheese or
beans on toast was the staple Sunday night tea, except in the summer when salad
was the food of choice. We sit trays on knees eating while you complained about
the ‘noise’ that was the top 40, counting down to number one before bath-time. Afterwards
all washed and dry, I’d sit in your chair and watch That’s Life with you. A gentle kiss sent me to bed with warmth of a
fathers love.
And so back to
today...
Two weeks before
my seventeenth birthday, you’ve gone. Ten weeks ago we were both laughing about
how I’d broken my arm while sledging and you’d put your back out at work,
sneezing whilst carrying a wardrobe upstairs. That resulted in three separate stays
in hospital for you and the knowledge that Cancer was eating at your bones. I watched
as you slowly were reduced from the strong man who cradled me in your arms to a
man who cried in pain whenever he was touched.
You saw me leave
school with good grades and get my first job. But you’ll never see the adult
you had a hand in raising, and you won’t be there to walk me down the aisle or
cradle any future grandchildren you may have. I will never get the chance to
buy you a drink and you’ll never see my eighteenth or twenty-first birthdays.
You always were
a great believer in fate, the what-ever will be, will be, philosophy. I have that too. There is a reason you’ve
been taken from us so young in life. The answer will greet me when we meet
again and walk painlessly side by side my two steps to your one stride.
I’m going to
miss you
Puddin x
©Mills Laine
©Mills Laine
