My father died of cancer in September of 1989.  Since he was a young man he had problems with a duodenal ulcer, which meant that he experienced stomach and digestive discomfort from time to time which would interrupt his nights sleep.  Ultimately it was a digestive tract cancer in his colon which eventually took his life at a very premature age, 60.  It left a great void in all our lives and deprived us of a loving and caring man who truly was full of goodness.

Dad worked as an auto electrician and when we lived in Yorkshire he had a garage business in the town.  This meant that as a child I was always around and playing in cars.  But the garage wasn't the normal kind of 'fix and service' type of garage which is usual.  Because we lived in a small town Dad's garage also had a small fleet of 'grand' cars used for weddings and funerals.  So this meant that we used these 'grand' cars as our own little runabouts.  I still quite enjoy the more refined kind of car for my own transport, although circumstances sometimes require something a little more conservative, and when you first started to know me I had a lovely Jaguar.  I guess Dad had more than a small part to play in me acquiring that kind of taste.

As a young man he played cricket and football for the village and although he didn't actively participate in sport that I remember, he always enjoyed watching it and encouraged us to be involved in it.  In this photo he's on the back row, third from left.  His younger brother, Dougie, is in the middle on the right.

When we moved to Cleveleys he sold his share of the garage business and worked for a large garage in Blackpool.  He was very good at what he did and I remember when my friends and I started to drive and could only afford VERY second hand cars, he was able to fix them with a kind of logic that I think I have inherited but used in a different way and in a different arena.  I'm afraid to say that if a car I have breaks down it goes straight to a garage to be fixed.  I must have spent hours standing next to him handing him spanners and screwdrivers and lying down underneath cars shining a torch onto the inaccessible part he was working on, but I had little interest in doing it for myself.  The same is true of anything mildly electrical.  Dad rewired some of our houses and put new plug sockets all over the place, but I'm afraid my skills with electrics stops at putting a plug onto a lamp or appliance.

It's not that I'm incapable of doing it but I just have never taken the time to bother with it, so consequently I just don't understand that which my dad found to be second nature.

I guess like many parents the social life which they cultivate is often a by product of the interests, demands and activities of their children.  In this respect mine were no different and they struck up lifelong friendships with other parents of children in the band and scouts.

By taking an active interest in the social and fundraising side of their children's activities, Mum and Dad not only provided some tangible support to those organisations but helped myself and Marilyn to become integrated into them.

Dad was a very 'hands on' kind of person and was a willing volunteer to give assistance wherever he could.

When we moved to the guest house he would work at the garage during the day and then help with the evening meals and whatever was required in preparation for the coming day for the guest house.  Both Mum and Dad worked very hard and their days must have been very full raising their family, running a guest house and holding down a full time job.

When we eventually moved from the Guest house he would bake bread on a Saturday morning which created a great smell through the house.  My favourite 'snack' food as a teenager was toast and he would get offended if I used his bread to make toast.  So I rarely did, but he would enjoy using his bread to take to work for his sandwiches.  I guess there was a novelty about it which he could share with his work colleagues.

Dad loved children and doted, quite rightly on the only two grandchildren he knew, Ray and Laine.  He would take Ray out on day trips on the train or take him to watch a rugby or football match.  Ray was only young at the time (he was only 12 when Dad died) and Laine was just a toddler, but I know that the love and pleasure which Dad got from both of them was incalculable.

Of the many loving things which he did for them was one which embraced the love which Marilyn, Ray and Laine had for him.  You will know how nice it is that children get a story read to them before they go to sleep. Well Dad recorded a number of stories which he narrated for Ray and Laine onto a tape recorder and Marilyn would play it for them when they were tucked up in bed.  The story would start with him saying that 'this was grampa', as he liked to be called, and he would then read them to sleep without physically being there.

I think it says a lot about the kind of relationship that he wanted with his grandchildren, which of itself says a lot about the way in which he cared for and loved his own children.

I always remember Dad as a happy man and he enjoyed a great sense of humour.  He would generally look for the fun side of things and tend to give people the benefit of the doubt until they had proved beyond all doubt that they were not worth bothering with, and then he would just tolerate them.  Life's too short to get upset about trivial things and inconsequential people.  In Dad's case sadly it was much too short.