All my life I’ve had a desire to tell someone what I am doing. Am I alone in this?
In particular, if I am doing something new or going somewhere interesting or achieving a special goal, I have to tell someone about it.
In most cases that someone is my father.
Dad died in 2005 but that hasn’t stopped us holding long interesting conversations, just as we did in his lifetime. Again, I wonder if I am the only one who does this.
When he was alive we would talk about the Music Hall singers and comedians that I loved to watch in old films if they had passed away or on television’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium if they were old and grey and still strutting the boards.
Dad had actually watched these Vaudevillians at the still operating Swansea Grand and at the long-closed Swansea Empire when he was a child. He would tell me of the times during the war when an air raid warning siren sounded. The performers would pause their act briefly and invite those who wished to leave to go home to their makeshift air raid shelters. Hardly anyone left and the show went on; Hitler himself had little effect on the Music Hall business!
When I see a great show these days Dad and I compare it to those of long ago.
We would also have long, nostalgic discussions about Prime Minister Mr Wilson, the treacherous Mrs Thatcher and the long lost and lamented Labour Party during the Blair years. Our political chats often get quite heated even now.
When I first worked underground in a dirty Welsh coal mine I was often scared by the huge machinery that loomed out of the gloom. Although dad wasn’t there, I still talked to him and it was comforting. When I learned new things about the mystical craft of coal mining I proudly spoke to him and explained these matters telepathically.
Since he has left us I still have things to tell him. This year of 2009 has been such an interesting one that I have had something to tell him almost every day.
I was in Hong Kong and shared with him the experience of hearing the Noonday Gun of Noel Coward’s song – a song Dad loved.
In Macau we looked at “China across the Bay” as Kipling might have done on the Road to Mandalay.
I told him about my visits to the Rhondda, Aberaeron and the Old Vic Theatre. Am I the only one who does this? Surely not.
We enjoyed a fine single malt whisky at Boat Quay in Singapore’s Chinatown.
He took me to my first rugby match at Cardiff Arms Park in March 1963 when Ireland won 14-6 and we still discuss how we were robbed! He took me to my first greyhound race at Rhydyfelin where my Uncle Billy owned a dog in race 4. I could never understand why Billy fed the dog meat pies just before the race, it was as if he wanted the dog to lose!
I still ask Dad lots of questions about my grandad and other older long-gone family members, but of course, it’s too late. He was a fine man, a good man and a great Dad.
Merry Christmas, old chap.
In particular, if I am doing something new or going somewhere interesting or achieving a special goal, I have to tell someone about it.
In most cases that someone is my father.
Dad died in 2005 but that hasn’t stopped us holding long interesting conversations, just as we did in his lifetime. Again, I wonder if I am the only one who does this.
When he was alive we would talk about the Music Hall singers and comedians that I loved to watch in old films if they had passed away or on television’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium if they were old and grey and still strutting the boards.
Dad had actually watched these Vaudevillians at the still operating Swansea Grand and at the long-closed Swansea Empire when he was a child. He would tell me of the times during the war when an air raid warning siren sounded. The performers would pause their act briefly and invite those who wished to leave to go home to their makeshift air raid shelters. Hardly anyone left and the show went on; Hitler himself had little effect on the Music Hall business!
When I see a great show these days Dad and I compare it to those of long ago.
We would also have long, nostalgic discussions about Prime Minister Mr Wilson, the treacherous Mrs Thatcher and the long lost and lamented Labour Party during the Blair years. Our political chats often get quite heated even now.
When I first worked underground in a dirty Welsh coal mine I was often scared by the huge machinery that loomed out of the gloom. Although dad wasn’t there, I still talked to him and it was comforting. When I learned new things about the mystical craft of coal mining I proudly spoke to him and explained these matters telepathically.
Since he has left us I still have things to tell him. This year of 2009 has been such an interesting one that I have had something to tell him almost every day.
I was in Hong Kong and shared with him the experience of hearing the Noonday Gun of Noel Coward’s song – a song Dad loved.
In Macau we looked at “China across the Bay” as Kipling might have done on the Road to Mandalay.
I told him about my visits to the Rhondda, Aberaeron and the Old Vic Theatre. Am I the only one who does this? Surely not.
We enjoyed a fine single malt whisky at Boat Quay in Singapore’s Chinatown.
He took me to my first rugby match at Cardiff Arms Park in March 1963 when Ireland won 14-6 and we still discuss how we were robbed! He took me to my first greyhound race at Rhydyfelin where my Uncle Billy owned a dog in race 4. I could never understand why Billy fed the dog meat pies just before the race, it was as if he wanted the dog to lose!
I still ask Dad lots of questions about my grandad and other older long-gone family members, but of course, it’s too late. He was a fine man, a good man and a great Dad.
Merry Christmas, old chap.
Chris Skelding 2009
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