Father's Day | Memories of Dad

Making sandcastles with dad

My father died when I was 20, over 36 years ago. I have many memories though. What follows is a extract from a book focusing on his and my late husband's lives as they connected with mine. 

'Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on my dad’s knee with my thumb in my mouth, riding on his shoulders as we played together and being tickled so much I worried that I would wet myself. I remember searching for fairies with him at the bottom of my parents’ bed and taking a young friend back to my house even though he fell over outside his own because ‘my dad is good with sore knees’. He became the street’s unofficial doctor after that and his treatment always included funny stories as well as plasters and antiseptic. . . . . My mum told me that he laughed when as a baby I peed all down his back, and even managed a smile the time I was sick on his head after he threw me up in the air too soon after tea. I remember him patiently spending the whole of his lunch hour from the factory gently attempting to remove the saucepan that I had stuck on my head and then dancing round the living room with my feet on top of his.. . . [I]  still cherish the Valentine’s card that he sent me (anonymously) the year after the friend I walked to school with got a dozen and I got none (I only found out he sent it a decade or so ago).' (Letherby, G. 2014 He, Himself and I: reflections on inter/connected lives Nottingham: Auto/Biography Study Group p20).