A Proper Dad

Right now, I'm feeling very nostalgic.
There is a family playing on the beach in front of me. What you'd call a 'hands on dad' is busy building a much turreted sandcastle with his little boy. The little girl is sitting on the sand proudly exhibiting her sand mermaid 's tail and watching her mum collecting shells to add the final touches.
They look like we did.

I keep thinking of that microcosm that is a family on holiday, of how I felt as though I existed in a glorious bubble when you took us on holiday. School, work, friends and relations were nothing to do with our holiday.

The rest of the year we didn't see much of you, so hardworking you were. You'd come and hug us goodnight when we were half asleep and it was bliss to breathe in that daddy smell of cigarettes and beer and revel in the feel of your work jacket, rough against my cheek.

On holiday you were all ours, we had you all to ourselves,like a great big cuddly toy. 

You had holiday clothes, two pairs of shorts and two shirts in green and petrol blue and they lasted like forever.

Another family are playing nearby. Two pairs of flip- flops as goalposts and a beach ball, they are making the World Cup look tame.

You would have approved, the simpler the better, fun for free, no need for expensive toys and gadgets when there was so much to enjoy for free. It was a lesson you passed on every day, the fundamental importance of play.

Those family holidays of my early childhood were so precious. memories to cherish forever and they lie still within me, a solid foundation of love.

The first holiday I clearly remember was going to Butlins. We bounced up and down on the bed the night before singing 'we're going to Butlins, we're going to Butlins!'

What I then remember, but vaguely, is an incident on the journey there in the car.
A prang and a shouting match between the other driver and you.  The bitter laugh when we arrived at Butlins to find the driver of the other car was coming on holiday there too.

We went to bed on bunk beds in little huts.  The last post was played when it was time to turn the lights out. In the morning there was more bugle playing from the loud speakers and a voice calling 'good morning campers'!

You told us it was like being in the army, you were going home and you 'd come back and get us at the weekend.

We accepted it, like we accepted that anything you did was a wise and sensible idea. We rode around on bicycles made for two and sang along with the redcoats and then we all went home.

Having cancelled out holiday camps as suitable family holidays, we next tried 'touring Scotland staying at Bed and breakfasts.' Like everything, you made it sound exciting, an adventure, so once again we were bouncing on the bed with excitement this time at the thought of sleeping in the car. You put down a plank of plywood on the floor and we both went to sleep in our sleeping bags. We went to sleep in England and woke up in Scotland. The adventure had begun. With you, our hero as the leader, we looked at Scotland with wondrous eyes. Here there were marvellous cattle, with horns and floppy fringes. There was heather growing as far as the eye could see and we picked a bunch to put on the bonnet of the car to make us feel part of Scotland. You told us stories of Picts and Celts and showed us stone ruins. You made us aware of history and respect for the lives of who had walked the same moors that we were on. You marvelled at the wonder of the Forth Bridge, full of admiration for the Scottish engineers that had built it a hundred years before.
Then we watched in total awe as you skimmed stones across Loch Lomond, not once or twice, but six times at least. We admired you even more than the engineers.
The Bed and breakfast places were all run by friendly women who easily succumbed to your charms and we were given Scotch pancakes, marmalade and Petticoat tails and Tablet, like our fudge but even better.  They called us 'wee bairns', it sounded nice.
In the evening you'd be offered a 'wee dram' and we listened as you were taught to say Scottish toasts and Scottish poems by Robert Burns. These poems and toasts stayed with us through the years, repeated at every suitable occasion.
We went across to the Isle of Skye singing one of our favourite bedtime songs, 'Speed Bonnie Boat.' We went to Edinburgh and had our photo taken with the Scottish guards in their kilts. At one stage our auntie and uncle turned up in their car, we didn't question it, there were no mobile phones then but we just thought it was quite natural that our lovely auntie was there to join in our holiday.
We left the land where streams had become 'burns' and lakes had become 'lochs', fudge 'tablet', children 'bairns' and pancakes were cooked on a 'griddle', forever with a special place in our hearts.
That holiday must have had a few challenges though we weren't aware of them. In the photos we are wearing our macs or thick sweaters all the time. Our mum is sitting in the car in all the photos.We are clutching our I-Spy books as though we are hoping to get some warmth from them and you found it hard to sleep in the nylon sheets at the Bed and Breakfast.

The following year you announced that you had read that 'the proper dad takes his kids camping.'
So your friend Ron lent you an army tent to see how you got on.
We went to Wales. This started off alright. We pitched the tent at a campsite by a little stream with a very attractive stone bridge. You taught us how to tighten the guide ropes, use a mallet to knock in the tent pegs and make sure the tent was nice and secure. We went to bed dreaming of little streams and thinking that the name Blodwyn was really pretty.
That night though there was a terrific storm. You spent the night digging a trench round the tent to keep the water away from our camp beds.  Our super hero always there to cope. We woke in the morning to find we were in a field of mud, the stream was a raging torrent and the bridge had disappeared.
The rest of the holiday seemed to be about visits to a district nurse to treat a carbuncle, a train ride up Mount Snowdon surrounded by mist and wearing our gum boots all the time. You bought us both wonderful presents on that holiday, a penknife for my brother and a  doll called Blodwyn in Welsh national costume.

The Welsh rain had done nothing to dampen your spirits though.
The 'proper dad taking his kids camping' though was here to stay. The following year you bought a secondhand tent. A beautiful orange and green tent, with a separate bedroom and a sewn-in groundsheet. We had a dummy- run in the garden. You showed us how to help you put it up. You bought a table and chairs that folded up to look like a suitcase. You bought a little camping gas stove and a car with a sunshine roof.
No raincoats or boots, no thick jumpers, nothing heavy was allowed in the boot of the car, we were going to follow the sun, we were going abroad, our names were put on passports, we were going to tour Europe. This was an adventure so great we were overcome with excitement.


The sensations and the emotions that this holiday provoked have stayed with me, in my heart and mind.
Off we went, our little bubble, our microcosm to Dover. We boarded the ferry and gazed in wonder at the white cliffs, at the luscious, foamy trail behind the ferry, the swooping seagulls, the salt spray, and then the sight of the French coast.  In those days we didn't have garden furniture of pavement cafes and the sight of Bologne with its' bright parasols, its' striped awnings, its' hustle and bustle, just an hour away from home, here was a whole different world. add to that, driving on the wrong side of the road, the different language, but all the time we were in our bubble, our family, with you.
Our English car with its English suspension and the steering wheel on the wrong side took everything in its' stride with you in charge. We stopped at Arras to stay with some friends who had taken refuge in England during the war. Their grandfather was English. They took us out in their French car, which happily bounced and swayed along the French roads. We jolted around in the back fascinated by the tall trees at the side of the road, the ruins which reminded us the war wasn't so long ago and they took us to a place called Vimmy Ridge. You didn't come, you'd had enough of all that. We followed our hosts around the French countryside, so peaceful now, no-one said anything, it was all so sad.
When we got back a lavish meal had been prepared for us, the house smelled of butter, we counted the courses, at least ten. We hugged and kissed and promised to keep in touch with the children the same age as us. We still do.

Then we were off again, in our English car with the sunshine roof. The French roads had done something to it. You said there was a bird in the bonnet. We went further south, the countryside kept changing, vast golden fields of sunflowers, The weather grew warmer. We could hear the 'cigale', you told us that meant we were following the sun. We opened the sunshine roof. We put on our snorkels and stood on the back seat, looking out of the sunshine roof.
We stopped for the night an a small hotel. You didn't speak French. In Arras you'd learned to say 'Je suis stupid', which eventually became 'Jazz we stupid' and raised many a smile for many a year.
All you needed to do was smile at the receptionist, point to us and you were understood. Then when we left the next day, 'addition'. You added to your repertoire as the holiday went on, 'Comment alley vous? Une chambre, and your favourite 'San fairy Anne'
We changed out of our English clothes into shorts and tee shirts. We stopped at a market and you bought us flip-flops. At first we shuffled along, falling over and treading on the backs, causing us to roll around in hysterical laughter, but soon we were flipping and flopping along like all the French children.
In England we'd always played the game of 'first one to see the sea.'  we were going through some heavily wooded hills when you shouted out 'sixpence for the first one to see it.' We sat up straight and stared in awe at the wonderful, powerful sight of the bright, sparkly turquoise Mediterranean sea. The smell of the pine trees, the sound of the crickets, and the sight of the sea, we had arrived.
We pitched our tent right on the beach where the sand was soft and white. There was no tide at all, our sandcastles didn't get washed away. The campsite was shady and smelt of pine. We had all that we needed. The campsite shop sold tomatoes and peaches. We'd never tasted anything so good. Sometimes we'd take a saucepan to have it filled with French chips or 'pomme frites', still my favourite food.
Our Uncle arrived, our mum's brother, we went to pick him up from the airport. He came towards us proudly bearing his duty free whisky. Like our auntie in Scotland, your sister, it just seemed natural and right that our uncle should appear.
We went in the sparkling sea with our lilos and snorkels. You couldn't swim, so you attached the lilo to a rope and tied the other end round your toe. You said you didn't want us to go across to Africa.

You lay on the camp bed in the shade of the Mediterranean pines in your holiday clothes. You were our sultan, our king. We, your devoted slaves, fed you grapes, fanned the air to cool you, revered you.
In the evenings we sat around in the cool of the evening. You invited people to share your whisky. They invited you to share their wine. we learned to say cheers in lots of different languages. many of the Germans had only one leg or one eye, or just looked sad. It made us think of Vimy Ridge and how sad we'd felt there.
We collected like shells and dried starfish and made a garden round the tent. we played with the other children, confused at first that they couldn't understand English when we spoke it really slowly.
Then one day we were off again. This time we were going north. We went over mountain passes and stopped to collect the snow in a bottle. We drove through clouds and near precipices.  Going round one particularly dangerous hairpin bend our mum opened the door thinking she hadn't shut it properly. She was sitting in the back with me. You looked in the mirror and your shoulders relaxed when you saw she was still there.
We delighted in the sound of the bells hanging round the necks of the Alpine cattle. We ate chocolate and bought a cuckoo clock and a Swiss knife.
By now our passports had lots of stamps in them, we had badges and stickers from all the places we had been. It just seemed that you looked at the signposts and decided where to go at random. When we saw ' Paris' on the signpost you said, 'let's go there' and off we went to that magical romantic city. The female counterpart to our more masculine London. We pitched our tent in the Bois de Boulogne and went on a tour of Paris by night.

You must have got the idea by now that my dad was not only a proper dad but a very special and precious dad.


I look at the family again. The dad is buying them all ice cream. I look at the notes I am reading for my Psychology course. The first seven years of a child's life are so important. It is then that the real, solid foundations are laid.
On our holidays as we moved around Scotland, Wales and Europe, we didn't know of the burdens you had to bear, we didn't know of the challenges you were facing. We didn't know that this was it.
You were our dad, our precious dad. we felt safe as long as you were there. Eight years of holidays and your love, a life time of cherished memories.

Thank you

There it is!!