An Absolute Riot

This second part of my light-hearted biography of my father centres on his adult life, with further amusing anecdotes. There is so much more I could write, but for now I will say that in his company there was never a dull moment! I hope this gives you an insight into the man who shaped my life and never once lost my admiration.

You can also listen via https://open.spotify.com/episode/7xwL81BU2xE5n16lf4lj9w?si=ebe0b7c404314235

AN ABSOLUTE RIOT

At times my father could have been considered an absolute riot with his outgoing personality and sense of humour. He was a motor engineer by trade, an amateur sportsman in his earlier years and spectator in later life. He was also a perfect host, making all visitors feel welcome, and could mix in any company, treating everyone the same. Although he wasn’t known for his culinary skills or interest (except for the eating side of it!), he would volunteer to make sandwiches when we entertained guests, to give Mum a chance to chat to our visitors, often her cousin Giulia. His sandwiches were legendary among family and friends as they were made at greased-lightning speed, ending up in weird and wonderful shapes and sizes which seemed to make them more interesting, if a little unconventional. He would even make tea on these occasions, later offering visitors a second cup, and if they declined, he would proceed to ask them if they would like the money instead! Added to all this he would often have a running joke going, usually centring on the alleged queue of women along our road, all waiting for him, often with the police having to control the crowds! A quick glance out of the window, however, always revealed an empty avenue! Despite being informed of this, he was undeterred and would offer to elevate the visiting lady to third or even second place in the queue – all this in front of her husband and my mum, of course, as Dad was entirely open with his mad scenarios and everyone who came to see us was expecting and looking forward to engaging in some harmless banter with him. Meanwhile, Mum sat by grinning, having heard it all before, with Dad remarking that she had offered a tenner to anyone who would take him off her hands but there had been no applicants!

His humour was not confined to the house. London Transport always used to be famous for its abysmal bus service, though I well remember the day our arrival at a bus stop coincided with the arrival of a bus. As we boarded it, I turned to Dad and said “You’re always lucky with buses.” His reply, to the amusement of my long-suffering Mum and the driver was “But unlucky in love!” In reality this was far from the truth as my parents were very happily married, and Mum often joined in with Dad’s humorous comments. After she had been attacked in our house by two men, whom she fought off valiantly, he would often say he had to watch his step with her as she had beaten bigger men than him – quite a feat considering she was a petite lady. The attackers fled empty-handed, leaving her with a black eye, missing teeth and a head wound which needed stitches. She had been very brave, and the story of this horrific incident was in all the newspapers the next day. The perpetrators of the crime were never caught, despite Mum enduring identity parades in the months following.

Then there was the WH Smith saga. When he retired Dad would accompany Mum shopping and every Thursday would buy a TV guide at Smith’s. The magazine shelves were always well patronised by people standing in front of them and reading the publications, many putting them back without buying any. Dad, who was a good judge of character and always seemed to know what he could get away with, said to the assistant, whom they had got to know over the weeks, that it was a bit much – all those people standing there reading the magazines. She agreed, adding that there was little they could do to prevent it. However, Dad came back with “No, you’ve misunderstood me. I think it’s quite unfair of Smith’s not to provide them with seats at tables and cups of coffee while they’re reading!” Luckily, she had a good sense of humour and said “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but we’d never get rid of them then!”

Dad was not an avid reader, and as his secretary dealt with all the office correspondence and Mum much of the home paperwork, he had lost confidence in his ability to spell correctly and would often ask me how to spell various words when he was writing a letter at home, usually to his eldest sister. One day I asked him why he didn’t check in the dictionary just behind him. To this he replied “Why should I go to all that bother when I’ve got you here?” I pointed out that I could be wrong with the spelling and that would reflect on him, then asked how he thought that would go down with Auntie Alice who was somewhat pedantic where English grammar was concerned and encouraged my writing. He told me not to worry, as he had a get-out clause. He did and showed me the finished letter which ended with “PS Spelling by my daughter!”   

Although Dad was by no means fat, he was muscular as a result of all the sport he had engaged in, not to mention injuring himself in the process. Auntie Alice reckoned that he had damaged every part of his body with his sporting activities, and she wasn’t far wrong. Being the second youngest of eight children (the ninth having died in infancy) and having spent years at boarding schools and in the army, he was no wimp and any injuries he sustained he would try to ignore. The shoulder he dislocated playing football he was only fully aware of when he couldn’t pick up his knife and fork at breakfast the next morning, and the less said the better about his continuing to play to the end of two other matches with a broken ankle. He paid for this in later life though, with a very painful and swollen ankle joint. I even recall him coming home from work one day saying he had accidentally knocked his ankle hard but waited till he got round the corner and out of earshot before saying “Ow!” It reminded me of the cartoons where such things happen. Although his ankle pain increased over the years, he never gave into it. In fact, one day, only minutes after complaining about this pain, he announced he was going for a walk of a couple of miles. My query about the wisdom of this in view of his ankle was met with “I know, but I want to show it who’s master”, and off he went!   

On another occasion he arrived home from work around 6:00 p.m. with the little finger on his right hand bandaged. He made no mention of it till Mum and I asked, and it transpires that during the lunch break he had been mending a small problem on his colleague Dave’s car and had caught his finger in the fan belt, just seconds after telling Dave to be careful not to put his hand near it. The upshot of this was a trip to Casualty, where examinations and X-rays revealed that he had split, fractured and dislocated his finger. Dad ignored their advice to go straight home from the hospital and finished his afternoon back in his office. Luckily, this was on a Friday, so he did have the weekend to recover a little. As for his finger, it did heal after a few weeks but was bent and misshapen for the rest of his life.

Once he was no longer an active sportsman, he continued his interest in sport as a spectator. Mostly this was via TV, but he was not averse to going to the little park at the top of our road to watch the local lads having a kickabout. I do believe that if there had been two snails slithering over a brick, he would have been there awaiting the outcome of their race. He even used to switch the television on to watch the results of the Eurovision Song Contest without ever hearing any of the entries!

Dad had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of various sports, though didn’t support a football team. However, he leaned slightly towards Norwich due to the city’s relative proximity to his home town of Gt Yarmouth. Despite his great sense of humour, he never seemed to latch on fully to modern comedy, such as Monty Python; in fact he wasn’t keen on The Goons, though continued to have a great admiration for Charlie Chaplin and some of the other stars of the silent movies. Returning to Python, I well recall watching an early episode with my parents. One of the sketches involved a game show with such unlikely contestants as Karl Marx, Che Guevara, Mau Tse Tung and Vladimir Lenin – the star prize being a luxury dining room suite. In the elimination rounds a variety of questions were asked, from the name of the Eurovision song by Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson to the now infamous poser asking in which year Coventry City won the FA Cup Final. Needless to say, I had no more idea than Karl Marx, played by Terry Jones, but Dad with no hesitation declared “They’ve never won it”, adding “They’re intelligent people, all university graduates; you’d think they would have checked their facts.” After blank stares from the panellists, Eric Idle, the quizmaster, proceeded to inform Karl Marx that it was a trick question as Coventry City had never won the FA Cup Final! At this point, Dad had to take back all he had just said about the Pythons! Mum and I laughed about it for years afterwards but had to admit that his knowledge of football was exceptional. When Coventry finally did win the FA Cup in 1987, the next day I wrote to tell our American friends who were (and still are) huge Python fans and had been highly amused, not only by the original sketch but also by Dad’s input at the time!

And there have been other cases of Dad being linked to comedy sketches! Many years ago, when his brother Charles and family were staying with us for the festive season, Mum, always more practical than frivolous, gave Dad a pair of underpants as one of his Christmas gifts. He jokingly objected to the fact that they were Large and said he would go and try them on. When he came back he was wearing them over his trousers, which he said proved he only needed Medium. As far as I recall, they were not taken back to M&S to be changed but the story of this catwalk parade still made my aunt laugh and recount it when she came to stay with us about 20 years later! Along similar lines, Hugh Laurie later appeared in a sketch called “My Favourite Pants” with his character claiming he wore a pair over his trousers and then walked down the high street admiring them in shop windows! At least Dad never went to those lengths! Mum also recalled an episode of The Golden Girls where a Norwegian fisherman was mentioned, his claim to fame being that he wore his underpants over his trousers – this was another reminder of Dad, in fact doubly so as the Scottish side of his family was not only in the fish-curing business but also said to be descended from the Vikings of Norway.

Dad was always a character, even as a child, and I have written previously about some of his exploits in those halcyon days. However, my rather flat words here do not even go halfway to describing him and the fun and pleasure he spread among so many. I am sure it was being part of a big family – especially in the days before TV, computers and so forth when they had to make their own entertainment – which contributed to the person he grew up to be and whom I knew, loved and still miss greatly.

© Chasqui Penguin, 2022

Twitter: @ChasquiPenguin