Happy Birthday

My father would have been one hundred years old today. I have thought about him so much, but because he died almost sixty years ago the memories are dim.
We shared interests and spent a lot of time together. He was a brilliant mathematician and one of his greatest joys was when I brought home from school a new maths text book which he would work through just for the sheer pleasure of it. Another shared interest was our stamp collection which I still have, neatly cataloged in his spidery writing. He was good with his hands and quite creative too. My father wasn't able to go to university, his parents couldn't afford it, but he took the Civil Service Exam and came first in the country. He was rising high in the Civil Service but his untimely death at forty means we will never know how far he could have risen.
Because he died so long ago, I don't have many things of his. The little book is called "Gill's Plane Geometry" and is inscribed with his name. The slide rule is his, kept even though I wouldn't have a clue how to use it. The drawing set is rusty now but I used it for many years. Computers have changed everything - how he would have loved them!
I wonder what sort of celebration we would have given him for his one hundredth birthday? Happy Birthday Daddy.