Another year over

When I was a little girl my father was enormously influential in my life. In many ways he was very strict, but in other ways my brothers and I were allowed tremendous freedom. He had been brought up by a family whose members were influential in many parts of the world, and who were also sticklers for correctness where honesty was paramount and the work ethic one of the bedrocks of existence. I used to love to hear him tell of his boyhood in India, such as when he and his sister were collected by elephant to go to tea with a friend, or when they used to retire to the hills in the heat of the summer, taking all their household, including the piano, with them.

He was a natural story-teller, and would have us roaring with laughter at his tales of his wartime days in India and Burma. When his CO asked for a volunteer to drive a tank-transporter from the dockside in Bombay to battalion HQ he didn’t hesitate. No matter that he hadn’t driven one before – he could drive a car, and it couldn’t be very different. He was roundly cursed by the tram-driver who was forced to reverse his tram (only because the transporter was pushing it) to let him through. When, at a junction, he got too close to the rickshaw in front the front bumper pushed down on the rickshaw’s stand, raising the shafts (with the driver dangling helplessly) high into the air, and tipping the unfortunate passenger onto his back. The piece-de-resistance occurred on his arrival at HQ, when he may have cut the corner a little too sharply, and brought down all the powerlines for the camp.

He was always one to encourage anyone to do what they wanted, as long as they didn’t do it half-heartedly. Provided we all did our utmost at anything, it didn’t matter whether we succeeded or not. Apathy was despised, boredom forbidden (“Only boring people get bored”) and physical discomfort borne stoically (“Cold is an attitude of mind”).

He died 17 years ago today. And I miss him.