Hi Dad. It’s been a long time since I wrote you a letter, even longer since I wrote something about you, if ever!
First, I’d like to acknowledge the debt I owe to you for enabling me to continue my education all those years ago, for as long as I needed. It allowed me to obtain the qualifications I have and so follow the career path I have been able to do. Because of your decision to keep me at school, I am able to afford the lifestyle I currently enjoy. Thanks Dad. You weren’t so lucky.
Likewise, when I married and left home and eventually left the country, and many other countries afterwards, you and Mum always came to visit. The first time, you took up the challenge to get passports and get on a coach to travel hundreds of miles to meet up with me and my wife (hopefully) somewhere, as planned on the way to Frankfurt. No mobile phones or ways to connect on the trip. Just trust that it would work out. And it did. But we didn’t use a coach again!
We’ve come a long way from walking Rover every Sunday morning on the golf links in Burslem, while Mum got Sunday dinner ready, through walking in the forests of the Taunus mountains around Kronberg and Oberreifenberg or in the fields along the River Rhine in Germany, or in the “Grande Place” in Brussels, or the country lanes around our house in Bergen op Zoom, in Holland, to walking in the English Garden on Lake Geneva in Switzerland.
You and Mum became quite seasoned tourists!
But at the same time, I was always welcomed back home to Dartmouth Street as if I’d never left! You’d pop your head around the kitchen door and ask, “would you like a cup of char?”
You will always be remembered as a good man, an honest man, reliable, trustworthy, hardworking. A kind and above all, a family man. All in the true meanings of the words.
You will rest in my memory and thoughts for ever.
Rest in peace Dad. You’ve earned it. Peter
Peter Ward:
08/06/2020