I was up early yesterday morning, pulled on a t-shirt and tracksuit pants and wandered out the back for something. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of my reflection in a mirror and I had a sudden flash of memory. What I saw in the mirror was my father, hair uncombed, shirt collar askew, just as he always was in the morning. Old photos show that I was a bit like my father when he was in his twenties but I’ve never thought that I resembled him particularly.
Dad had an old orange jumper with holes in the sleeves. When he got up in the morning, he used to drag on this jumper over a pair of shorts or grey trackie pants and that’s how he would be for a good part of the day.
He had an old typewriter which lived on the kitchen table and always had a blue air-letter stuck in the top. He got into the habit of writing all the daily news to my aunt in Scotland and the air-letter stayed in the machine until it was full and he could send it off. Then he started a new one. He used to turn over the top and tuck it in so that we couldn’t read what he was saying.
The typewriter was dirty and stained from the cigarettes he used to smoke until the doctor gave him an ultimatum – give up smoking or die. He came home from the doctor’s, put his pack of Rothmans Plain on the mantelpiece and never smoked again (or so we believe!)
My father was a very quiet man. Marilyn and I moved away early in our marriage and we were in the habit of ringing home every weekend. He would answer the phone, Hello (in his Scottish accent) and, when he realised it was us, he’d say, “I’ll get your mother.” He couldn’t imagine we would ring to talk to him. Still, he rang Mum from work every day and she said he would tell her more then, than he ever did face-to-face
Unlike most Scotsmen, he didn’t drink and he lived for his family and his work. When we first came to Australia, he worked every shift available so that we could get a start in this new country. He refused to buy a house although he could have afforded it; perhaps there was some deep-seated philosophical resistance stopping him.
He was a very intelligent man with great organisational abilities but he had been born into a time when a son followed his father into the same company. His own father was a coal miner but Dad got a trade, fitting and turning, and didn’t go underground. At the AIS, where he worked for most of his life in Australia, he was promoted to engineer in charge of purchasing spares and so on for the maintenance department. His proudest possession was the gold Omega watch he received after 25 years with the company. I think he was happy with his lot in life and I’m not sure he would have considered changing it.
After retirement, he became interested in travel and, like me, he got great enjoyment from planning trips. There was no internet in those days so he would ring travel agents and collect brochures and study them meticulously. Sadly his health failed him and he didn’t get to enjoy his later life. He died in 1987 at 69 years and 4 months. It was his birthday last week.
As I write this, I’m thinking of the Eric Bogle song, Little Scraps of Paper. His father died young too and he thinks of his memories of his father as little scraps of paper. That’s how I see it too.
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