Our Fathers - Reflection by Canon Bob

It is an obvious truth that each one of us has a different relationship with our Father. I am aware that some of you reading this will have experienced enormously painful experiences and do not wish to reawaken long dealt with memories. Others, especially given present circumstances, will be feeling the sharp pain of bereavement and our hearts go out to all of those in mourning. Others, like me will have benefitted from a close and loving relationship.

My dad was born in 1919 which meant that he had barely left school before being called up at the beginning of the Second World War. He served as a Captain in the Artillery in the Indian Army in Burma. I can’t begin to understand how those years must have affected him but I suspect his lifelong enjoyment of whiskey and water may have had its origins in the jungle. Another consequence was the cementing of a bond of friendship with a group of ex school friends for the rest of his life. They all played cricket at the same club and watched rugby together at Waterloo. They were all Free Masons at the same Lodge and met up most lunchtimes at a variety of ‘Gentlemen’s Clubs’ in town. Dad was as reluctant to talk about his memories of the war as he was about his faith. However if asked he would confidently declare ‘Church of England’. I sometimes think that the Church of England have left people like my dad behind.

Dad taught me a love of sport and ingrained in me a sense of right and wrong and the need to look out for others. At his funeral the general sentiment was that ‘He was a gentleman’ and I think he would have approved of that. Of course we did not always agree; the first swear word I ever heard him utter was directed at the television during a party political broadcast by Harold Wilson!

I found it really hard to watch him grow old and diminish and writing this brings back feelings of gratitude, love, mixed with regret. At the end of the day, however if my children remember me with the affection I have for my dad I shall be satisfied.
 
Canon Bob

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