Alistair

I’ve not posted for a long while, partly because of many things going on in our lives. Sadly one of those was the loss of Gin’s Dad, who passed away at the end of August. Today would have been his 80th birthday, so I thought we would raise a metaphorical glass to him as I share the words wot I wrote, all of which are things that his daughters (Gin, Jen and Di) said of him when we said goodbye to him.

Our Dad, Alistair.

Our Dad was an amazing man. Quietly spoken, understated in so many ways, and yet quite extraordinary. So, where he wouldn’t have spoken of himself, we will.

We sat down the other night, gins in hands of course, to talk about the moments that we remember of Dad; those times that tell the story of who he was. The first description that came to us was “Patient”.

Dad had endless depths of patience. He would happily spend hours in the Horniman Museum looking at the Apostle Clock, waiting for it to spring into life and strike the time. And when he wasn’t waiting for a clock, he was waiting for Jen at the swimming baths. Not that he could swim or was remotely interested in it. But he could wait like the best of them.

That patience also extended to the beach, where he would demonstrate another of his passions - history. Now most Dads, when asked to build a sandcastle by their young daughters, would reach for a bucket and plonk down a round thing. But not ours. He would delve into the recesses of his not inconsiderable mind to conjure up a mental floor plan of one of his favourite Scottish castles. Hours later (there’s that patience again), he would finish a historically accurate sand model of Dunnottar, or whichever had taken his fancy.

His love of history also played out at our bedtime. To settle us down, Dad would tell us “Thinking Stories”; stories for which he didn’t need a book but could recount just by thinking. He told us of Robert the Bruce and the spider in a cave, of King Alfred and his burnt cakes, and of the giant Fin McCool.

Dad’s love of the past extended to our ancestry, so much so that he used obscure family facts as passwords for his accounts. He was also very cautious about storing this information (probably linked to his occupation, but we’ll come on to that in a bit). Both excellent traits. Not so excellent when you are trying to deal with his banking and investments, and the only password hint that you have is “3rd time Great Grandmother’s favourite brand of teacake”. And to add to the fun, he did love a password in Gaelic.

And that brings us to languages, His job (we will come to that in a minute) took him all over the world, and wherever he went he would learn enough language to get by. He spoke beautifully in French, could throw in a bit of Serbo-Croat and manage polite levels of Chinese and Arabic (he could order dinner, hail a taxi, that sort of thing).

Dad’s fascination with Gaelic spilt over into this choice of song. We remember only too well arguing in the back of the Austin Maxi on long journeys about which of our favourite tapes would be played, only for Dad to shut us up by putting on Finlay McNeil’s “A Tune And A Welcome”. Que loud groaning!

He also liked to sing. At least we think that is what he was doing. Sometimes he would sing to us to send us to sleep; if it wasn’t one of his Gaelic favourites, he’d give us a rendition of “Keep The Red Flag Flying”. An obvious bedtime choice. We know it was this song because we recognised the words. The tune though could have been anything. Dad to singing was like Les Dawson to piano playing, choosing to use a deep bass key rather than his regular tenor

Dad’s ability to entertain didn’t end with singing. He was also a magician. He had this amazing knack of making plastic bags appear from nowhere. No matter where we were, if one of us needed a bag (to put our collection of conkers in, or other spoils from foraging), voila! A bag appeared. Where he kept these, we never knew.

Not only could he magically make bags appear, he would do the same himself. He was like the Shopkeeper from Mr. Ben. We’d be sitting in the kitchen with our boyfriends in the evening, and out of thin air Dad would appear like some sort of Hot Ribena carrying Dressing Gown Ninja, silently blinking into existence amongst us.

It’s an ability that would definitely come in handy at work. To the outside world he was a Senior Civil Servant in the Ministry of Agriculture, but we were convinced that he was a spy. We never knew what he was doing. Quite a lot of the time, we didn’t know where he was or which country he was away in, learning the language.

Dad loved animals though, so perhaps the spy theory was wrong. Animals also loved Dad. Wherever he went, cats would follow. Like some sort of Feline pied-piper, when Dad sat down, a cat would appear in his lap, both parties being very content with the arrangement.

Flora and fauna were very much his thing. His happy place was at his allotment, copy of Gardeners Weekly waiting in the shed for the end of his toils. And wow could he produce vegetables. We are pretty sure that he set up Wallington’s Farmer’s Market to off-load some of his produce. And just in case there was ever any chance of getting bored, he joined the Soil Association and was one of the driving forces behind the reinstatement of the lavender fields (but only with proper British lavender mind).

We haven’t mentioned art! One of his favourite trips out with us was to an art gallery. He was particularly fond of Dulwich and would happily while away a few hours enjoying the paintings. These trips usually ended with some lunch, and a glass of wine. Always one with an eye for value, Dad would immediately suggest that “it would be more economic to have a bottle”. And so, they did.

And finally, we are back in the back of the Austin Maxi, arguing about which Thompson Twins track to listen to and compromising with Clannad. Now it is Christmas Eve; Dad used to take all three of us daughters to Nonsuch Park to get us out of the way whilst Mum wrapped our presents. This tradition meant we knew that Christmas had officially started, the end being when the annual jigsaw was completed.

On this sad note I will end this post, but there’s an update brewing. I’ll be back soon!

Take care

Mr H