Like father like daughter

So on this day 50 years ago my dad died aged 79. He went to school with the poet Rupert Brook at Rugby School, he fought on the Somme in the First World War and got shot. Thereafter he was moved to Palestine and served under General Allenby and met Lawrence of Arabia. In the Second World War he was captured before Dunkirk and was a POW until 1945 being saved from certain death by General Patton.

He had me when he was 70 and we lived for part of the time in Menton in the South of France, in Majorca, Tenerife, Holland and Denmark. We moved a lot but I had a magical childhood. He spoke to me and my brother in French. The photo of him looking angry was when he had to get a passport photo for our visa when we lived in Majorca he thought my brother and I were playing with the curtain but it was the wind. He got really cross and the photo caught him being very angry. He laughed very loudly when he saw the photo. The picture of me is with my Covid 19 non haircut.

Not long before he died when we were in Tenerife he bought a kiosk’s entire supply of whistle sweets like on Chitty Bang Bang. When we got back home he invited friends with children over for a party. He called the children into the garden he gave each one a handful of the sweets on the proviso that they must not eat them until they were in the car on the way home and then to blow them the whole way home. If the parents rang my dad to complain he promised them a whole load more. The end result was some very cross parents! My dad was delighted. Dad you were awesome as they say these days.