Things I've learnt about my dad
He's not 'just' Dad. He's an actual person!
Of course I know my dad is a person and not just Dad. I know he’s clever and interesting and has many interests and passions. But it took a day, a couple of weeks ago, to remind me that Dad’s working life was a huge part of who he is. That it meant far more to him than merely being a way of earning money to keep us.
I know this sounds ridiculous, coming from someone who’s nearly 60 - ie, old enough to know that parents are actual people. But you know how, when you were young, all you thought about a parent’s job was that they went off in the morning and came back again at night?
That was the sum total of it. All the bits in between - managers, colleagues, good days and bad - didn’t exist for us. They just came home, probably knackered, and set about cooking our dinner or pouring a big drink, and settling down to watch Tomorrow’s World (featuring amazing inventions like honey in an ozone-wrecking aerosol can!).
Or maybe they’d watch Colditz. Men trying to escape from prison by digging a tunnel with a teaspoon.
If this was grown up life, I didn’t want to think about it.
So mostly, I didn’t.
I did know that Dad’s job involved lugging huge silver cases about and standing in embarrassingly public places, with a tripod and a big black cloth draped over his head.
As a freelance architectural photographer he’d stand around for years, it felt like - outside a church in Leeds or in a shopping precinct in Sheffield - waiting for ‘the light’.
Why couldn’t he be like normal dads?
Often he’d taken me out with him on jobs, trundling all over Yorkshire in our pea green mini van.
I’d be expected to walk along in front of whatever building he was photographing - not because I was a particularly attractive child, but ‘for scale’. I could’ve been anybody! A life-sized cardboard cutout would’ve done the job!
Anyway, architecture is one of Dad’s passions - and he’s always had a keen interest in Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who designed the iconic Glasgow School of Art. He did the photos for a 1960s BBC documentary about him, and a beautiful 1970s coffee table book. Last month my daughter was doing an internship in the art school’s archives. She discovered that they had a sizeable collection of photographs of the school - taken by her granddad!
Once the connection was made, the archive team were keen to meet him. So Dad - who’s nearly ninety - was invited in for a visit.
We all went and it was such a lovely, moving day. Dad was thrilled to see a selection of his striking ‘60s and ‘70s black and white photographs all laid out for him to peruse. One of the team interviewed Dad for a profile on their website. Hearing him describing the challenges of pre-digital photography really pulled me up short. My own father had scrambled onto the art school roof to get the best shot.
I’d thought he was just a bloke who dabbled about in our cellar darkroom and was pretty good at making omelettes!
So there you go.
Parents are actual people! Who knew? And they can do all kinds of clever stuff, aside from raising us.
Of course I knew this all along. I just needed a little reminder, that’s all.
Love,
Fiona xx
PS My brand new novel, ’Tis the Damn Season, is out next week and is perfect for anyone who’s ever wanted to run away from Christmas. Is this you? Then you can preorder here!
Hahaha - I’d forgotten all about Colditz! My English schoolmates watched it religiously when I lived there in 1974! But really, how wonderful that your dad got to enjoy such a life- and career-affirming day, and that your daughter was the one who set it in motion…
What a lovely read and what a wonderful dad you have. It's very true, when you are a child, dad is someone who goes out to work in the morning, comes home, eats his tea and then watches TV. At the week end he washed the car and cut the grass. Well, that was my dad back in the 1960s and 70s. What I remember clearly is his Tupperware lunchtime box filled with cheese sandwiches made with Mothers Pride bread. He had cheese sandwiches every day of his working life and never complained. He's now 95 and a bit forgetful and has poor sight but still loves a cheese sandwich!