My Dad (Ronald Andrews 1935 - 2015)

I haven't done a lot of work on this blog of late, having needed all my spare time to concentrate on other things. But bearing in mind that buried in the depths of its Older Posts are several obituaries to a number of people who have had some impact or another on my life at some stage or another, it would be perverse if I were not to use it to record my deepest love and gratitude to a man who was there for me for over 54 years of my life, and whom I have been without for only three long and sorrowful weeks.

The following is a tribute that I was honoured to have written and read out at my father's funeral at Hanworth Crematorium on Wednesday, 16th December. As I cannot improve on it, I republish it in full.

Dad, I miss you, but these few words at least will live forever:

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My father was born on 14th August 1935, here in Hanworth. But at a young age he moved to 82 Octavia Road on Isleworth’s Worton estate. The fifth of six children, this is where he was raised.

He was, by all accounts, popular amongst the youngsters on his estate. Kids would call round and ask if he would come out with them to play football, over on the green or in the streets as kids did in those days.

After leaving school at fifteen he went into window cleaning, going on to set up his own business which attracted not only domestic customers but also a number of shops and industrial clients around Hayes, at which he earned a fairly good living. He met Mum and they married in April 1959, and between them they managed to buy their own house at 40 College Road, where I was born in 1961.

I have some clear recollections of Dad from College Road. Cutting myself with his razor that he’d inadvertently left lying around as I tried to copy him shaving, sitting on his lap and pretending to drive his car home along the quiet residential street. One memory in particular remains with me. Despite being only about three or four I had at the time a fanatical interest in motor cars, and it was a source of pride to me that I could identify every make and model on the road. Dad would indulge my enthusiasm by taking me for walks around the local streets and listening patiently as I pointed out the Anglias and Consuls, and Morrises or Austins. Even at that young age he was keen to help me develop. He was never too busy to take me out.

CHESTNUT GROVE

In 1965 the family moved to 33 Chestnut Grove, where I grew up, and where he and Mum lived ever since. It was a larger house, which was just as well as in 1966 my sister Ruth came along.

Both I - and a little later Ruth – went to Worple Road Primary School, where Dad had cause to be particularly embarrassed by my bad behaviour as the headmistress was also one of his customers on his window cleaning round, and he regularly had to endure tales of my exploits whilst applying his chamois to her double glazing.

Dad was a big supporter of Brentford Football Club, and as a kid he would always take me along. He would talk me through the teamsheet and in due course I would become as familiar with the set-up at Griffin Park as I had been years before with the cars on College Road. One amusing incident from around that time sticks with me. Dad and I were at a vet’s surgery in Hounslow and a guy in there with a dog thought it hilarious that we had taken our tortoise along to have its gammy eye seen to. We both instantly recognised the man as the Brentford defender Tommy Higginson.

BUTLIN'S AT CLIFTONVILLE NEAR MARGATE

Every Sunday morning Dad would take Ruth and I to visit our Auntie Barbara and Uncle John, who still lived at the Octavia Road property, and he would drive us with our cousins Lisa, Anne and Steven to a local park, or to the river, or to somewhere else where we could play and have fun.

Possibly my fondest memory was of the summer holidays that we almost always spent at Cliftonville, near Margate. Back in the day Butlin’s had a number of hotels in the town, and each year we would spend a week in one or other of them. Hotel life in those days was much different to today. Dinner was a set meal served at a set time, and if you didn’t get there for that time you missed out. We would sit at bench tables with other families, interacting with strangers. Each hotel had a TV – just the one, mind – and if you wanted to watch BBC1 you would go to one hotel, BBC2 and ITV were shown at other hotels. Although the rooms were quite posh, the bathroom was along the landing and would be shared with several other families. There were amusement arcades and a ballroom in one hotel, a shop in another. They were happy times.

My father would take me fishing on the old Margate Pier. I loved fishing – Dad hated it, yet he would patiently linger for a couple of hours while I indulged my hobby. Once I was fishing with a handline and there was an almighty pull on the line, so violent that it left my hand and went flying into the sea. Although I’d lost my tackle I was so excited at the thought that I’d hooked a fish so big that it had pulled the line from my hand. Dad though went racing down the steps onto the lower platform of the pier, where two youths were laughing hysterically about their prank. Somehow he managed to persuade them very quickly to hand me some of their own tackle as compensation. Although they were probably only about thirteen I considered at the time that he was quite heroic.

Other times we would go swimming in the pool at the Queen’s Hotel. In his day my father was a powerful swimmer.

One other recollection I have from Cliftonville was when we took advantage of our proximity to France to take a day trip to Calais on a one-day pass. I think it was 1978. It was the one and only time that my father ever left the UK, and the culture shock that he felt was palpable. Dad never had any desire to travel abroad, which was just as well because we later discovered that his birth had never been registered when he was born. He didn’t possess a birth certificate, which would have made getting a passport very difficult.

FLITEFORM

When I went to senior school Dad demonstrated his interest by becoming part of the Parent-Teacher Association. And when I went on to college to study for a degree he travelled up to Manchester with me on the train on the first day. More culture shock.

As Dad became older he climbed down from his ladder and took up paid employment, first with Fliteform at Heathrow making aircraft fittings and later with Richmond Council. All this time he put up with me as I got into all manner of trouble, and tried to get me out of it whenever he could. He was also an occasional painter and decorator on his days off, and he took me along sometimes to help me earn a few bob, even though I know he despaired of my uneconomical approach to this kind of work.

Socially he liked to end the day with a relaxing drink – or, in his prime, about half a dozen relaxing drinks. He was a light and bitter man (for the benefit of the under 40s amongst us a light and bitter was a cocktail involving half a pint of bitter in a pint glass topped up with a bottle of light ale). This led to a lot of misunderstandings whenever we ventured to any of the more modern, trendier hostelries in which such a tipple was unheard of. My father’s typical “gertcha” moment.

In retirement he loved his gardening, but more than anything he loved his three grandchildren, whom he doted on.

ISLEWORTH ROYAL BRITISH LEGION

Most recently, for many years Dad was proud to have been the Poppy Organiser at the Isleworth British Legion. In recent years he would raise over £20,000 each time for surviving ex-service personnel and their families. This is the hard, thankless, painstaking work for which I hope he will be remembered by many.

I have found myself wondering over the last week or so why it is that I haven’t cried more over losing Dad. Whether maybe there was something wrong with me. It’s not that we weren’t close – we were. Or that I didn’t love him, because I did - and I do. I think the reason is this. Dad did everything in life that he wanted to do. When he had no more reason to drive, he stopped driving. He had no ambitions or desires to travel. He had worked hard and was satisfied in his retirement. In his last year or so he discussed handing over his work for the Poppy Appeal. He looked after his grandchildren. He spoke of his future passing not with fear or with sadness, but with an air of calm inevitability.

I’ll always remember my Dad with fondness and gratitude, but also with a sense of thankfulness that he did more or less everything he wanted to do; achieved more or less everything he wanted to achieve. I hope you’ll do the same – it’s what he would have wanted.

Two Nights in Two Towns

For the past two weekends Caroline and I have taken advantage of extended rest periods at my place of work to spend a couple of individual nights by the seaside – first at Cliftonville, near Margate, and then at Southend.

At Cliftonville we stayed at the iconic Walpole Bay Hotel on Fifth Avenue. The hotel is simultaneously a museum, with antique furniture and artefacts strategically placed throughout, along the corridors and outside each of the rooms. Particularly quaint was the wonderful trellis gate lift which services every floor from the heart of the Reception area.

Cliftonville has a special significance for me as it was the place we used to travel to as a family for our summer holidays when I was a child. In those days however it was much, much different. Then the coastal road was dominated by several hotels run by Butlin’s – Queen’s, St.George, the Norfolk and the Grand – and over many years we both stayed at and used all of these. The hotels operated as a boxed set so that residence in one allowed for full use of all of them, including bars and dance halls, amusements, shops, television rooms and a children’s cinema with doubled up as an entertainment theatre.

TOP OF THE POPS

The mobility between TV rooms was particularly useful. In those days even the best hotel rooms did not have a television provided, and so by having three hotels with three televisions showing each of the three channels one was able to watch whichever side one wished at any time without there being any arguments. My particular penchant at the time was for Top of the Pops, so I would head to the Grand which, if memory serves me correctly, was the appointed venue for BBC1. There I and thirty or so others of a similar age would occupy the small viewing room and listen enthusiastically to the dulcet tones of Brian Connelly or Noddy Holder.

The Queen’s Hotel was on the opposite side of the road to the others and featured a large swimming pool, which later became a dolphinarium. It also hosted a spacious hall in which bingo was played and where I once (unlawfully) won the then immense sum of fifty pounds on the final, Friday night full-house.

Back on the “main” side and almost opposite the Queen’s was a really useful seaside shop, which sold all sorts of stuff from the usual beach paraphernalia and saucy postcards to Ghurkha knives and boxes of stink bombs (“Stinkbomben”, I seem to recall).

A short walk in the direction of Margate took one to the lido which boasted several amusement areas as well as a large entertainment bar where, during the later visits of my Margate period I would enjoy a refreshing (and again unlawful) Sunday afternoon pint of lager whilst listening to the liberating sound of the Wurlitzer. Oddly, my most abiding memory of this period was walking into the ladies’ lavatory by mistake and being observed by scores of puzzled people swiftly departing it again.

This all happened back in the 1970s. In those days Cliftonville was a popular and thriving holiday resort which complimented perfectly the brighter lights and seaside sounds and smells of Margate itself, a mile or so along the road. The Margate experience was epitomised by Dreamland, too grand to be labelled a funfair but too puny to be thought of as a theme park in the modern sense of the word. As well as providing amusements and rides Dreamland was also a zoo. Plus of course Margate had a pier.

TURNER CONTEMPORARY

By the time I visited Margate in the 1990s it had come to a sorry pass. Dreamland had been renamed Bembom Brothers – it was later to change back to Dreamland before closing entirely. The old seaside shop was derelict, the seafront was ghost-like due to the lack of any discernable activity at any of the adjoining buildings and the once proud Butlin’s hotels were no more. One of them seemed to be operating independently, still within the trade, but the character of Cliftonville had altered astonishingly. Whilst I happily acknowledge the duty we all possess towards those less fortunate that ourselves, the number of residents who were clearly living under the local authority’s duty of care, including by no means a few from various parts of Eastern Europe, had altered the demography of the town radically. This was no longer bucket and spade territory by any stretch of the imagination. All that seemed to remain was the sturdy old harbour and the hideous early 1960s tower block overlooking Dreamland – apparently called Arlington House – which can only have bypassed conventional planning procedures as no serious local authority anywhere, at any time, could seriously have considered it appropriate development in the surrounds in which it stood.

It is from this low ebb that Margate (and Cliftonville) needs to be considered today. Dreamland is still derelict, but its much anticipated relaunch is well under way (it is scheduled to open again next year). Plans are afoot for Arlington House, if not to demolish it at last then at least to make it somehow less of a slum. The fame and recognition achieved by local girl Tracey Emin and a local connection of some kind with the painter Turner seem to be in the process of transforming the town into some kind of oasis of art. A new building at the old pier head named the Turner Contemporary, observed not unreasonably by Caroline to resemble a large public convenience, opened in 2011 and has already attracted over a million visitors.

The harbour itself has more activity than of old too, with two excellent little bars and a café having been established. Here we enjoyed a couple of pints of Old Rosie cider at the folky Harbour Arms (which at 7.3% ABV meant at all times having to remain alert to the severe drop into the drink from the unfenced harbour wall).

Cliftonville had changed too. The magnificent buildings of my childhood holidays, once proud hotels and later hostels for those in need, are now smart flats. It’s becoming “nicer”, property prices are doubtless on the up, but the spirit and soul of Butlin’s (pre-Bognor megadump) are long departed.

SOUTHEND

Over in Southend I had less to ponder upon. I’d only been there, at most, four or five times, the most recent being in February 2013 when I had checked in for the night at the splendid Ilfracombe House Hotel in Wilson Road before flying to Portugal from the absurdly-named “London” Southend Airport the next morning. Having had a good experience at this modest but wonderfully well-run little hotel on that occasion I took the risk of taking Caroline along on Bank Holiday Monday, and I’m pleased to report that the experience was repeated. Immaculate rooms, friendly staff, a relaxing comfortable bar and unhurried “eat as much as you like” breakfast combined to make a perfect stay in spite of the horrible Bank Holiday weather.

During our stay we took a stroll up the 1.33-mile Southend Pier, the world’s longest leisure pier, and back – all in horrendous driving wind and rain. A nice and very popular café at the head of the pier breaks the mission up nicely, and we returned for fish and chips at one of the many such outlets along the seafront. Those of a less adventurous bent could always take the train, which travels to the pier head every half hour on the half hour, and returns exactly fifteen minutes later.

All in all we did a lot of driving for two nights in two seaside towns, but it’s nice to get away. Next stop, as normal, will be the Isle of Wight.

Facing My Fear of Farewells

One thing that really saddens me more than anything else, and a thing I handle particularly badly, is farewells. Not only from people, but from places too. Some places just don’t do it for me but there are others where I seriously believe I pick up a spirit, and I feel a strange, almost “goosebumpy” sensation when I am there and that spirit is around me.

There is no rhyme or reason where some of these places are concerned. Abingdon in Oxfordshire is a pretty town in places, but there are prettier ones all along the Thames. Ham in Surrey is fairly nondescript. Cliftonville near Margate in Kent, once a cheerful seaside town, is but an empty shell. And yet for me they all have an inexplicable gravitational pull. Some people believe in ghosts in the form of human spirits, but for me there seems to be an energy generated by some past event or period of time that seems to linger, and which I reconnect with when I set foot in these places.

There is more logic to the affection I have for my little bolthole in Portugal. It is a very pleasant place, both aesthetically and in terms of the life I enjoy when I am here. I visit Portugal for a week every year. In fact this time around I was fortunate enough to have been able to enjoy two weeks in very quick succession, but that was sadly a one-off. I can’t afford two weeks every year, and timeshares are frankly a rip-off anyway.

For my last five visits my wife Caroline and my son Joe have not come over with me, for various good reasons, although my daughter Rosie has been with me for the last two. Of course I think the world of them both, but they can look after themselves and being away from them for a week doesn’t tug at the heartstrings all that much.

Being away from here for 51 weeks is a different matter. All sorts of irrational fears invariably report present. Will I be healthy enough to travel, or for that matter alive, this time next year? Will they have knocked the place to the ground? Will all the friends I like to think I have made here have found better jobs and moved on?

Because, obviously, it is about people too. On most holidays we meet people casually and sometimes we become friends with them. Then we all go home and usually we never see nor hear from them again.

The worst example of this I can think of was a coach trip that Caroline and I took to Austria back in 1996. For ten long days the same coach party is together, long journeys from place to place, meals together at restaurants along the way, all in the same bar at the hotel in the evening, quiz nights and talent contests. Then the long, long journey home, a last evening as a group at a hotel in France, a few drinks on the ferry and then, at Medway service station, suddenly the realisation strikes that you will never have anything to do with any of these people again. For a soppy old romantic like me it can actually be quite a devastating experience.

This being a timeshare we do sometimes see the same faces from one year to the next year, and I take comfort from this. This year though the clientele was a little different, the week having a Country and Western theme and the usual karaoke folk and talent showers presumably having swapped their bookings for a different week or jetted off elsewhere. I hope they will be back next time.

I am reassured by the work that is going on around the pool, noisy though it is. They wouldn’t be doing all this, I guess, if they had plans to turn the site into a multi-storey car park or an international airport.

So for me it’s back to the grind tomorrow, hoping that I can raise the price of an “in-betweeny” for September or October, and hopefully also we can be here then as a family.