Tribute To My Father

Today would have been my father's 95th birthday, so for something different, my post this morning is excerpts taken from his life, written in his words.

I came into this world on February 28, 1917, in the middle of World War 1, at a time of blackouts and food rationing. My arrival could hardly have been greeted with expressions of rejoicing. Mother should have dropped me on my head right at the start and saved herself a lot of extra work. The contents of Father’s pay packet did not increase with the arrival of each child. The money just had to stretch a little further. I was child number 6; and there were 3 more children after me.

My home was a very small, old cottage. Sanitation was crude. The lavatory was in a small hut in the garden, about 10 or 20 m from the house. It was primitive in the extreme: a wooden seat with two holes, one large for adults, and one small for children, with buckets underneath. Using the large hole as a child was fraught with danger!

My two years at the infants’ school passed peacefully and pleasantly; I have fond memories of my time there. We learned to spell, to read, to write, and to do mental arithmetic. We had no paper, pencils, or pens. Each child had a large slate framed in wood and a stick of slate the size of a pencil. This made a clearly visible mark on the slate. If you made a mistake, a wet thumb erased it. At the end of arithmetic, the slate was wiped clean with a damp cloth ready for writing or a spelling test.

In 1928, I was 11 years and a few months old. I was offered a place at a Grammar School in Fareham, seven miles away but with a reasonable bus service. Father was not at all happy about that. We were working class. After that, Father took no interest in me whatsoever, and the only contact we had was when I helped him in his allotment or in the garden.

“From now on you earn your keep,” said Father, “I’ll give you a week to find a job. If you can’t, I shall start you off as a length man on the District Council.” This was 1933, a time of depression and large-scale unemployment. Firms everywhere were laying people off rather than taking them on.  The details are hazy now but I was allocated a large mileage of rural roads and lanes. That was my “length” and I had to patrol it, clear water outlets, cut grass when necessary, sweep up any rubbish, and generally keep it all spick and span. With my grammar school education, a large handcart, a shovel, a brush, a rip hook (for cutting grass), I set to work to do my best for King, country, and my Father. My “length” of road presented no problems. It was a simple job for a simple person. However, it kept Father off my back. I was working; he could no longer grumble; he seemed quite content to see me settled in a dead-end job.

 

My brother Gordon went to work for a construction company with contracts all over the South of England, putting telephone cables underground, and I went and worked with him. Then came the declaration of war. Our work was classed as a reserve occupation, so no call up for us. I knew this would last only until our present contracts were completed. I also knew that all those called up could be drafted into any service, even down the coalmines; that I could not risk. If I volunteered, I could choose where to go.  So, I gave in my notice, came home for a few days, paid a few goodbye visits, then off I went to the nearest recruiting center.

My father survived the war, and went on to become a teacher. Sadly, he passed away not long after my daughter Sidney (his namesake) was born, but he touched the lives of many, and he is sorely missed.