“He ran a loose leaf tobacco business in the bowels of a Ford factory on the outskirts of Southampton”
An ode to my Dad
Believed lost forever but pleasingly in my possession for a few weeks and now, forever more, there’s a picture of my Dad worthy of a myth and another tale I tell myself of a sailor, a gentleman and someone truly loved who went by the affectionately known nickname of “Blackie”. Missing the family oracle and any notes or dates on the reverse of the photo, I’m ageing this black and white wonder to be of a man in his late twenties or very early thirties, a young man with life by the tail, tall, slender, a forever hat atop a balding head as forever as the “rollie” or hand rolled cigarette clenched between his fingers. I believe the backdrop to be my and our home city of Portsmouth and a bustling city centre alive at a stop sign, a snapshot captured in black and white time: a double decker bus joining the late 1950’s traffic, human and otherwise, a handsome man and father of three young girls, his face partially hidden by his forever hat, smiles in the afternoon sun. The tale I tell myself is that this is my Dad in the prime of his life and in the city he called home and free from the reason he moved to Portsmouth in the first place. Post Navy now. 9 years service. A parting of the waves. New directions for a sailor and the country he served. Now out on the town. Looking the business. Looking like my Dad, a forever hat to go with the forever cigarette, and the forever smile of a rogue on the lookout for a good time.
That’s the tall tale I tell myself about this recently found gem and portal into my Dad’s life: I’m picturing a Saturday afternoon in the city. A few months maybe since leaving the navy. Maybe even a few months into his new and soon to be lifetime in the employ of Mr Ford of car making fame. I see my Dad enjoying a weekend off, a Saturday in the city, every pub to be frequented, each and every betting shop granted his custom. Monday would soon roll around again, and there was Sunday too with four ladies dominating his life, a black and white picture book life of three young girls and two proud parents, of christenings, weddings and larger family Christmas parties, and a young boy to twenty something man in naval whites in Malta, Africa, France and Italy. Always naval whites before the jet black of his later naval career so reminiscent of his brother, another statistic and casualty of a senseless second World War. Now on “civvy street” and on a street all these years later as equally fictional and lost to the mists of time and progress, and of black and white memories, ripe for tales that I tell myself of a man I’ve missed for most of my life.
He ran a loose leaf tobacco business in the bowels of a Ford factory on the outskirts of Southampton when he wasn’t managing a betting shop, drinking in the pubs of the city or drinking in the nectar of life. My Dad lived a life. A true life. A hard working life. A traditional family life. Day shifts. Night shifts. Time shifts. More christenings. More birthdays. Colourful now. Full of 1970’s burnt yellow before the brighter colours of the early 1980’s. Playful times. Behind his bar. Always the joker the pack looked to for the entertainment. Everyone was welcome at my Mum and Dad’s parties, though strictly speaking it was my Dad who held centre stage as my Mum admired him from the wings.
My Dad made living a life look like fun.
There are no pictures to be found of late 80’s excess or the grandchildren of the 1990’s before his final child flew the nest as the beginning of a new Millennium approached. A quarter of a century later he remains absent on drunken leave, standing behind a bar in a universe we can only imagine, a beautiful lady still standing stage left, lovingly admiring her man. 38 years is a long time in anyone’s game of life, and there are November mornings, time stamped forever, of memories not captured in a photograph but in a crumbling mind’s eye. The man had gone, a gentle man, a gentleman.
But the memories and tales I tell myself live on.
"Tales I Tell Myself" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.