A York Church

The funeral is over now and dad is laid to rest.

Eulogy RWM

Our dad was a wonderful father and a smashing granddad and we all loved him.

He was born in Workington, Cumbria on the 23 Feb 1920.
King George V was on the throne, The Unknown Warrior was buried in Westminster Abbey, the Antwerp Olympics were held and Jazz music launched the Roaring Twenties.

Dad was a year old when his mum and his dad, a sheet metal worker, took their family to South Wales where the Tin-plate Factories were booming. Dad grew up with his two sisters, our aunts, Evelyn and Joan in Pontarddulais with mountains to the north and a thriving town to the south.

When he left school he went with his pals to get employment at the local coal mine but his grandfather was the gate-man and wouldn’t let him in. He told him he wasn’t going down the mines and to go and find a different job.

Dad then got a job working for the town chemist as a shop worker and delivery boy. His favourite task was to cycle around the countryside to find the chemist’s sheep-dip bath that was hired out to farmers along with the chemicals. The farmers would pass it around the farms so dad had to find it and inform them that if it wasn’t returned that day there would be an extra charge. The farmers would tell him to clear off and mind his own business but dad would give them as much back. He said it was always returned by that evening.

Sometime later dad got a new job in a public school in Berkshire and a year into that had a letter from his great boyhood friend and blood brother, Michael Malone, saying that there were jobs in York at Bootham Hospital. Dad applied and was taken on. He told us it took him three days to cycle from Wales to York sleeping in barns. It was at Bootham Park that he met our mum Edith Wood.

He said that in 1938 everyone knew that war was coming so he joined the RAF, but he still returned to York on leave to see Edith. They married on the 2nd of November 1940 and eventually had three children; Hazel, myself and June.

Dad’s RAF service started at Cardington, Bedfordshire in 1938 then to Sumburgh on the Shetland Islands where it was tough living under canvas in the most Northerly part of the British Isles – posted to Finningley, Yorkshire, now Robin Hood Airport. Then Valley on Anglesey, where at about this time their first child, Hazel, was born in Swansea. – Then he was posted to Filey in Yorkshire, where mum joined him to live a normal married life together in the town.

In April 1944 he was sent ‘somewhere secret in southern England’ and then on D-Day Normandy was invaded and I was born. Dad didn’t know for two weeks because shortly after, he was sent across the English Channel into Normandy and from there through France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and finally Germany. Dad thinks he went into Poland too driving two officers to snatch a scientist but he was told were to drive so wasn’t certain. The snatch failed as the Russian’s had got there first.

After the war dad retrained as a Painter and Decorator. It was about this time that the baby of the family, June, was born.

One day he found out that Post Office was recruiting and he successfully applied for a job as a telephone engineer. This was following an interest he had had all his life in wireless and electronics so he was doubly happy.

I remember as a young lad asking dad to make me a cricket bat one sunny Saturday. He said he would but the only piece of wood he could lay his hands on was an old 3 inch x 3 inch, yard long, telegraph pole ‘T’ piece. He set to to hand saw down the length of it to make a narrow plank. I don’t know what the wood had been treated with but it must have taken him two hours of sawing to produce it. His hands were riddled with Pine wood spells by the time it was finished.

I had that bat for years, it never broke and apart from being a bit narrow, a bit heavy and having two one inch holes in the middle of the blade it was perfect. Everyone in our street must have had a go with it at some time.

In 1975 he got an idea into his head to build a boat, not a sailing dinghy, a cabin cruiser. He enthused and encouraged us all until he eventually drew all the family into this scheme, and so it was, we eventually built the thing and then with a lot of manpower and beer we manhandled it from the back garden into the street where it was craned onto a lorry. We were all crossing our fingers when it was lowered into the river Foss in York but it floated beautifully and without leaking.

Dad used to go into the River Ouse and moor it near the Museum Gardens. Sometimes he had his grandsons with him for a sleepover on it. One Sunday morning the lads woke early before dad and in order to avoid going to church they wrote a note saying that they had gone for a walk and pinned it to dad’s pyjamas while he slept; they then went to hide in the gardens until it was too late for him to take them.

Dad retired from BT in 1983 but sadly a year later in 1984 we lost mum, and dad had a bad couple of years on his own but with Heidi their Yorkshire Terrier for company. He even had to move house temporarily while his was renovated. Once he was back in his own house things improved for him. He bought a caravan and a gold wedding ring. He had never worn a wedding ring before, so we surmised that some ladies must have tipped their bonnets at him and given him a fright.

He had a great time going away with Heidi in the caravan towed by his 957cc Ford Fiesta. He claimed that he had never had a problem; except going up hills of course.

Later on he got an interest in metal detecting and he with Heidi would go out with the club he joined and have a great day. On his wall was a display cabinet with his treasure finds. The most valuable item was a one pound coin but every piece told a different story.

Things took a turn for the worse in 1998 when his demeanour suddenly changed more or less overnight. It may have been a small stroke but we never found out for certain. He was managing well enough with June being his carer and with help from family, friends and neighbours until 2008 when it wasn’t enough any more. He went into the Lodge Care Home in Heslington where once he had settled he was happy.

We would like to thank the staff at the Lodge for their excellent care that kept dad happy and content. I’m sure dad sometimes thought he was one of the staff and there to do the job himself.

Sadly dad got a cold and chest infection this new year and could not get on top of it.

They say old soldiers never die, they just fade away and that is what happened to our dad; He peacefully faded away.

He would have been 94 this month.

God bless you dad.

Father