Stan

My dad was a great bloke.  It wasn't just me who thought so, it was also my schoolmates who told me that they wished they had a dad like mine. If you look in the dictionary for the definition of a great bloke, there should be the word ‘Stan’.  He was funny, kind, generous and the life and soul of every party.  He was someone who was prepared to go for the unconventional option, if he, his family or friends would enjoy it.

He died a couple of years ago of an aggressive cancer that was the first serious illness I can ever remember him having.  Even during his last days he still had more energy than I have on a good day.  Little everyday things will trigger a memory of my dad and he popped into my mind recently when we were arranging our holiday to Thailand later in the year.  He loved foreign travel and was delighted that my wife and I shared that passion.  In his later years, when his wings had been clipped somewhat, every holiday my wife and I arranged would be met with the response “how lovely” when we told him where we were going.  My mum, on the other hand, hated travelling any farther than Teignmouth.

When my dad left school he took an apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner.  He became frustrated earning money for someone else, so he decided to start his own business as an exhibition contractor.  He travelled Europe with his job, often for weeks at a time and always returned with gifts to prove that he'd been abroad. I got wooden clogs from Holland, a set of communist badges from the USSR, some shoes with pom-poms on from Greece and lederhosen from Germany.  The lederhosen were particularly fine, but I can't remember ever putting them on even though my dad encouraged me to wear them to school to show my friends (I didn't think it was appropriate for a 17 year-old studying maths, further maths and physics). He would also always bring a Toblerone. In those days, the Toblerone to a young boy was a thing of wonder.  It wasn't something you ever saw down our local newsagent, it tasted fantastic, and for children who still had their baby teeth it was almost impossible to eat.

My dad took me with him to Paris on a couple of occasions.  The first time I was 12; I had never flown before and had never been abroad.  We did all the usual tourist stuff, but he also decided it would be good for his son's development to take him to the Moulin Rouge.  If you're not familiar with the Moulin Rouge it is what these days would be called a Burlesque. I remember it being quite classy and very exotic (one of the acts involved a dolphin), and I was most impressed that my dad took me, not to the early show, but the late session that started about 11 pm.

My abiding memory of the evening was that I was in an environment which was, in more ways than one, very adult and I was being treated like one by everyone around me.  I even had a (small) glass of wine for the first time.  We sat at a round table with a group of tourists and I was next to a slightly drunk, elderly American lady.  We had a very nice chat about life for a young man in England, but she kept asking me whether I minded seeing all these naked women on the stage.  On every occasion I responded truthfully that I did not.  After we left the Moulin Rouge, in the early hours of the morning, dad walked me through the streets of Paris and explained to me all about the ladies of the night that we passed as we walked back to our hotel.  It was only some years after that I realised that this was probably the ‘facts of life’ chat that all children get when they reach a certain age.

When I returned to school and told my friends of my Moulin Rouge visit my dad's position as a great bloke was unassailable. However, our French-born French mistress was horrified that my father had chosen to take me to a burlesque rather than the delights of the Louvre or the Musée d'Orsay.  These days any child that is taken to the equivalent of a lap dancing club and given wine is probably placed on the ‘At Risk Register’.

If I persevere with this blog (it’s all going pretty well so far; much better than the ukulele), there will be more posts about my dad.  I like to think I share many of his characteristics, although, in truth, my sister is much more like him.  Since he died there’s been a huge void in the family which will never be filled.  I miss him a lot and think about him often.  I thought about having ‘A Great Bloke’ on his gravestone, but my mum went for something a bit more traditional.  It’s a shame, because I think he would have liked it.