My Dad's Story

I wrote this quite a while ago and have been deliberating about posting it for ages. I'm not sure it will be of any interest to anyone...but then the same could be said for everything most of what I put up here. It may just give you some insight into my background.

When my dad was very ill last year, he started reminiscing a lot about his early life. I suppose having a serious illness does that to you....you start taking stock of what’s gone before, as you’re not sure what lies ahead. I’m going to tell you a bit about my dad’s early life, which I've pieced together from a lot of conversations.

He was born in 1935, just outside London....the second of five children (four boys, with a girl in the middle). The first three children were born within a couple of years of each other and then my grandmother had many miscarriages, which took a toll on her health. My dad’s other two brothers are 15 and 21 years younger than him, so they didn’t really play a part in his childhood.

My grandfather was a carpenter by trade and my grandmother was a skilled dressmaker.  During the Second World War, my grandfather managed a shipyard that converted merchant ships into gun battle ships. He also did repair work on some of the bombed buildings in London. He was in fact repairing the damage to St Pauls Cathedral when another bomb fell that destroyed his work and all his tools. My dad can remember the noise and fires from bombing raids over London vividly...every night his brother and he slept in a cold Anderson Bomb Shelter in their back garden, while my grandparents took their chances in the house, with my aunt who was just a baby. Luckily for them, no bombs fell close by.

St Pauls in 'The Blitz'

When we were growing up, my dad always used to harp on about he had to walk miles to school (in the snow of course, as it was apparently always snowing). In reality, school for my dad was just over the road from their house...we found this out years later when when he took us on a trip down Memory Lane to the places of his childhood. My grandparents both came from large families, so my dad had a load of aunts and uncles around while he was growing up. One of my grandfather's sisters had a child out of wedlock following a brief romance with a “Yank” soldier stationed in Britain during the war...it was apparently a big scandal in the family at the time.

After the war ended, Britain was a pretty grim place....London was virtually a bomb site, food rationing would carry on until the mid 1950s and jobs were scarce. So it was probably no surprise that my grandfather decided to move the family out to the then colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which promised a good life of hot sunshine, wide open spaces, good food and jobs for those willing to work. Along with masses of other immigrants, the family set sail from Southampton for the long voyage to Cape Town and docked into Table Bay on Christmas Day, 1947....my dad remembers it being a scorchingly hot day.

The Royal Visit, Cape Town 1947

From Cape Town, the family travelled up north by train, finally settling in Bulawayo. There my dad restarted school and also took violin lessons. He became an accomplished musician, and was even offered a place at the Royal Music College....but being a musician was not a manly enough job for any son of my grandfather, and the stubborn old man refused to sign the scholarship papers, thus dashing my dad's hopes of becoming a professional violinist. Instead, aged 16 my dad took up an apprenticeship as a printer (back in the days when printing was done by type setting), and his music became a hobby that still brings him much enjoyment today.

Bulawayo City Hall

As a young man, my dad had many sporting achievements...he played rugby at provincial level, was a strong swimmer and earned a life saving medal. He was passionate about cars and spent months overhauling a Jaguar E type, back in his carefree bachelor days. Always keen to study new things, he went to university as a mature student in the early 1980s to obtain his Bachelor's Degree in modern history, another of his great interests. I remember going to my dad's graduation as a young child, and I think he was quite proud to attend mine..... a good education for his children meant everything to him.

Type setting printers

When I was younger (and sometimes still today) I clashed with my dad over almost every issue. Possibly we have personalities that are a bit too similar...he is incredibly stubborn, argumentative at times, fanatical about everything he does and persistent to the very end. I think I'm the diluted version...

It's been a year since my dad was first diagnosed with advanced cancer. He is still going strong and the most recent scan shows no further disease progression. Sometimes stubborn persistence can be a good thing.