Memories Of My Father

Now and then I am reminded of my father, who passed away back in 2001. He loved trainspotting, photography, and nature. He had a dark room at the back of the house, for developing his films. When I started Secondary School, this would become my bedroom. At the time, I didn't think much of it. Nowadays, though, I feel sort of guilty. It was a passion of his, and a space where he could retreat from the world. We lived in a three bedroomed house, and we didn't have a garage, so there wasn't anywhere else. It was either his photography or me (in a way), I guess.
He was already ill by that point. He'd discovered a lump in his throat whilst shaving one morning. He was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia back in 1994, when I was 8. I don't know the full extent of what he must have gone through, but I know he had his spleen removed (Splenectomy). This left a huge scar across his body, as the spleen was 3x the size it should have been, because it was jammed full of cancerous cells. He had his blood cleaned, and put back (Leukapheresis). He even had a full blood transfusion, swapping his blood entirely to that of his brothers, who was a different blood type. He had chemotherapy too. He developed bad jaundice and smelled very strongly of tinned sweetcorn for a while. I still think of him when I smell it now.
When my sister left home at 16, she went back indoors to get her jacket. She returned to the car and announced that he'd told her he loved her. Apparently, I responded with "Does that mean I have to move out before he'll tell me?".
It's true to say that my dad was very stoic, and seemingly unemotional. But he did have depression for most of his life.
He was married before he met my mother, to a woman named Jenny. They travelled around Europe in a yellow VW campervan, though I don't know where they went. They had divorced some time before he met my mother.
His marriage to my mother was far from a romantic ideal. My mother discovered she was pregnant, and his response was "I suppose we'd best get married then."
When he went into work with doughnuts to celebrate the birth of his first child, his co-workers were dumbfounded. They didn't even know he was married!
I remember waking up in the night one Christmas, aware that someone was in my room. It was my dad dressed in red, placing our stockings by the beds.
He roared the house down on one occasion, and my mother flew upstairs to see what had happened. He was laid in the bed, with his big toe pointing straight upwards. Turns out he had cramp!
He would come home from work on weekdays, and often bring back some kind of sweets for us. Kinder eggs, a Thornton's chocolate pig or mouse, sometimes stickers if we were collecting a particular set.
He enjoyed watching Friends, Blackadder, and nature documentaries. He enjoyed the squirrels and foxes that came to our garden. He'd buy beers with funny names, and submit his photos to magazines. He even wrote a book-about trains of course. He went to University, but I don't know what he studied there. He worked at Transport For London for thirty years. When his illness started to really impact on him, he was forced to take medical retirement. He wasn't happy about that, but he just didn't have the energy to fight the disease, work Mon-Fri and then go trainspotting at the weekend as well. It was too much.
We had the odd family holiday, but we couldn't travel too far away incase he needed to go back into hospital at a moments notice. He spent a lot of time in Guy's Hospital in London. After 9/11, he told my mother not to come and see him there, incase it got hit.
His eldest grandchild, whom he would never meet, was named after him.



And whilst I too struggle with depression, (as much as I hate it) in a weird way it does make me feel closer to my father. So does watching steam trains, although his personal favourite was diesels. Class 62, I think.