I wanted to say a few words about
what dad did for me, what he gave to me and how lucky I was to have had him for
a dad. As everyone will testify, he was good
company, easy to chat to, a sympathetic listener. He loved a terrible joke, something the three
of us have picked up. He was always
there to support us, whatever we might have put him through – and I fear we put
him through quite a bit.
He loved music and loved to sing, indeed
would sing at the drop of a hat. The
Parish Hall Players in Elvington provided him an outlet for this. I joined in for a while, in pantomimes and
other shows, before stepping away. Then
one year they were putting on a performance of Calamity Jane, with him typecast
as a character called ‘Curly’, and he asked if I could help bulk out the chorus. I reluctantly agreed but as time went on my
part started to build up, rather against my will. My reluctance cleared showed through because,
after one rehearsal, he took me aside and asked if I could deliver my lines
with a bit less sarcasm. Thankfully I
was saved from public performance when my brother kindly gave me
chickenpox. So thanks for that, Mikey.
We did more laddish things too. We watched
the motorbike racing at Oliver’s Mount at Scarborough and I remember seeing the
legendary Barrie Sheen racing, with his back wheel skidding away from him round
a hairpin bend as we stood on the outside.
Health and safety was less of a thing then.
We went to Church Fenton airshow a
few times, watching classic aeroplanes like Vulcans, Nimrods and Harriers, and
we were reminiscing about this the last time I spoke to him, how loud the jets were
and how he particularly liked the Lightnings.
And they were particularly loud.
Being an engineer, he was into
technology, like cameras, hifi and TVs.
One year he brought home a computer, a Sinclair ZX81, that he had borrowed
off a work colleague. I was fascinated
by what it could do and soon became hooked.
We got a computer of our own and I gave up my dreams of being a fighter
pilot for the more glamorous and romantic role of computer programmer, which
has been my career ever since.
He introduced me to rugby too and
we used to go to watch Hull Kingston Rovers at (the old) Craven Park with his
dad, my grandad George. I enjoyed myself
and became a big Rovers fan. One year we
went to the Challenge Cup Final at Wembley, though sadly we lost. Some years later he switched to watching
rugby union, which he came to prefer. In
the end I switched codes too (to the horror of my cousins– sorry) and when I
became a Sale Sharks fan, I took him to a few of our games, returning the
favour from earlier.
He was one of the founding leaders
of the Elvington Scout group and I joined up too, going camping and hiking
around Yorkshire. He taught me valuable
lessons in map reading and navigation that I still use today. We went to the Lake District with some of his
work colleagues a few times, climbing bigger hills than you get in East Yorkshire,
and that left me with an enduring love of the Lakes. In later years we did a few walks together in
the gentler hills of the Wolds, though he still set a cracking pace on the flat
that had me scurrying to keep up.
It's a bit of a cliché that people
live on in the people who are left behind but like all good clichés there’s an
element of truth in it. All these things
that he gave to me and inspired in me, things I still do all the time, give me
a way to remember him and always be grateful.
