Snapshots of childhood...

Today, would have been my Dad's 71st birthday, if he was still with us. I have been thinking a lot of trying to put down on paper my father's story. But I realise, I never really knew him. I knew the stories he told, but it's sometimes difficult to determine what was fact or fiction. But I have memories, mental snapshots, and I wonder whether it is his story or my own that I need to write about...

Sitting outside of the old mansion in St Kilda, converted into apartments, that was home. My brother, Dad and I sitting on the front verandah watching the world go by, Dad telling funny stories about the people passing. And my yelling "there's Father Christmas, Daddy, there's Father Christmas" and wondering why he tried to shush me, as a heavily bearded man, in a black suit and a big hat walked down the street. It's only now looking back I realise why he was so embarrassed, the man was an Orthodox Jew walking to the synagogue and here was I calling him Santa!

Dad yelling at us, cause we'd brought home a kitten found in a derelict house, that we wanted to keep. "There will be no animals in this house" he roared, and then we found the kitten asleep on his lap that night. He cried when he buried Dirty Dora in the backyard years later. And for every animal we had, we'd hear the same roar, and then he'd love them and they him.

Driving in the furniture truck with Mum and my baby sister, with my brother and Dad on the back to the new house in Thomastown, only to arrive and find the house has no walls or windows, and the builder's done a bunk with our money and we are homeless.

Curled up on his lap, watching Little Women, and the two of us sobbing, as Beth dies.

Telling me to shut up or I'd be sorry, while I sobbed quietly lying on the top bunk of the room I shared with my sister, not understanding why I'd been sent to bed in the middle of the afternoon in punishment for some unknown misdemeanor. And then crying even more, as he closed the door and said to my brother and sister, who wants an icecream?

Sitting on his shoulders at a grown up fancy dress party, when I'd sneaked out of bed to see every one's costumes, and him insisting I be allowed to stay up, much to my mother's disgust. He was dressed up as Herman Munster, and he kept losing the bolt of his neck so he araldited it to his head, and it took weeks before it fell off.

Hiding under the covers, with my hands pressed to my ears, as he crawled drunkenly along the hallway, crying for his mother, after an alcoholic binge that lasted days.

Screaming through the hallways and alleyways around the apartments we lived in on a hot summers night, while Dad and the other grown ups threw buckets of water at us, as we raced around in our summer pj's.

Being bundled into my parents bed in the wee small hours of the night by a neighbour, and seeing the flash of the ambulance lights against the windows, while we were told that Daddy's had an accident, and has cut himself shaving... and my brother whispering to me, I saw him, why would Dad be shaving his wrists?

Watching a neverending stream of boys pile in or out of his Volkswagen Beetle as he drove them to football practice... the only father on the block with a car. He was also the defacto ambulance when we had an emergency, when Brian upstairs fell and broke his arm, or my friend Karen set her skirt alight while jumping over a bonfire.

Dancing around in his underwear, singing I'm So Pretty, oh so Pretty... and hamming it up for the camera.

Sitting at the kitchen table the night of my sister's wedding, and reaching out to pinch me at every opportunity, until a friend asked him why he was being so mean, and him saying "Cause I hate her"

Walking up to wait for me to finish work at the local gift shop on a Friday night, and sweeping up and helping out while he waited, and then holding my hand all the way home and telling me how proud he was and how much he loved me.

Terrorising the teachers, and amusing all my classmates at every parent/teacher night he ever went to. One of the boys said "You're Dad is so cool, you are so lucky" and I said "You can have him if you like!"

A little advice about feelings kiddo; don't expect it always to tickle... Ordinary People

It was winter time, I can remember. Late on a Saturday afternoon, sometime in 1980/81 as we travelled by taxi as the light faded.

I can remember the closer we got, the tighter and more anxious I got, and the more relaxed Dad became. After days of black moods and tears and heated discussions the decision had been made... he wanted to check in to the hospital, was spiraling out of control and needed to admit himself and be voluntarily committed.

This wasn't the first time this had happened, though it was one of the first times I accompanied my parents on this trip. They had tried to shield us from a lot of Dad's mental illness. It was never a secret, how could it possibly be, when he had regularly required hospital admittance for over 20 years... either because of one of several suicide attempts (at least 6 that we know of) or like now, because either he or my mother could no longer cope without some drastic intervention. But until more recently, Mum had made this trip with Dad on her own, or he had gone by ambulance.

But I was older this time, around 20, and at that stage, the only child living at home, having returned home the year before after 15 months living in a share house. And so I had offered to go with them, mainly so that Mum wouldn't have to deal with what must have been an awful trip home alone afterwards.

Dad was finally smiling... he liked the hospital. Looking back now I realise my father was at his happiest when he was institutionalised. He loved the time he was sent to a boys home in his misspent youth as a punishment, and cried when his father came to take him home. Talked fondly of the 12 months spent in a sanatorium as an 18 year old, while recovering from tuberculosis. Enjoyed the Supported Residential Service he lived in for nearly a decade later in life and the Nursing Home he lived in before he died. I think he liked the routines, the orderliness. Someone told you when to get up, when to go to bed, when to eat and what to do.

So we left him there, Mum and I... on a cold Saturday afternoon, and we walked through the gardens of the hospital up to the bus stop to go home. While we waited, we talked, and Mum said, "I don't want to go home yet, let's go to the movies". "What will we see?" says I. "I don't know, let's decide when we get there" says she.

It was full dark by the time we got into the city, and raining heavily. We had no choice but to submerge ourselves in water pouring along the gutters of Russell Street, as the drains overflowed with the force of the rainfall. So we were both wet from the knees down as we laughed and raced for cover. My new indian cotton jacket started to disintegrate (literally falling to pieces) as the rain touched it... in the end I left it, a sodden mess wedged under the seat.

We stood at the ticketbox, looking at the titles of films, and their starting times, trying to decide what to see. "That film's supposed to be good" says I. "What's it about?" says Mum. "I don't know, but Robert Redford directed it, and Donald Sutherland's in it" says I. "Ok, I like Donald Sutherland" says Mum. So we bought tickets...

The film was Ordinary People... ironic but fitting that we should chose a film that deals with families, grief, and the aftermath of attempted suicide. It had a profound effect on me then, and watching it again more recently, it still has the power to affect me, but in surprising ways, considering the subject matter.

Timothy Hutton, plays Conrad Jarrett, a young man only recently returned home from a long hospitalisation following a suicide attempt. He and his parents, Calvin (Donald Sutherland) and Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) live in an idyllic, affluent neighbourhood, but are struggling following the tragedy of the death of their oldest son, Buck, who drowns when the boat he and Conrad were sailing capsizes.

This is a quiet, understated, but devastating film, as you watch this family unravel before your eyes. You only see brief glimpses of the accident in flashback, late in the film, and even the fact that there is something wrong with this family, only becomes apparent slowly. One of those times where a film allows the audience to find out things as the story unfolds without ramming it down your throat.

At 20, my sympathies were primarily focused on Conrad, but even then, I realised that in a lot of ways, he was the strongest character of them all. His attempts to understand not only what happened to his brother, but also his role in the accident, his place within the family and in his relationships is heartbreaking, but at the same time life affirming. But even the first time, I felt for all of these characters and felt some affinity with them all, an affinity I felt even more in my most recent viewing.

The caring but ultimately powerless Calvin, who wants his remaining family to be happy and his attempts to navigate some form of understanding between his young son and wife. This was Donald Sutherland at his best, where just a look has the power to move you to tears.

Calvin: Don't admire people too much, they might disappoint you.

And Beth, a woman who on the surface appears incredibly cold and unloving, but is both in deep denial and pain. There are scenes in this film when you just want to scream at her, for the way she ignores Conrad, but you come to understand that she can't allow herself to be close to him, to anyone. It's not that she doesn't love him, she just can't love him in the way that he so desperately needs, it's just not in her nature.

Conrad: You woulda visited Buck if he was in the hospital.
Beth : Buck would have never been in the hospital!

For all of it's emotion, the film has some lovely moments. Judd Hirsch is brilliant as Dr. Berger, the therapist that Conrad starts to visit, under duress, and their scenes together are both painful and funny.

Dr. Berger: So what are you thinking now?
Conrad: That I jack off a lot.
Dr. Berger: So what else is new? Does it help?
Conrad: For a minute.

Elizabeth McGovern is a delight as the fellow student with whom Conrad starts a tentative relationship.

Conrad: Anyway.
Jeannine: Hm, what?
Conrad: Oh just anyway. It's a conversation starter.
Jeannine: Hm, catchy.
Conrad: I knew you'd like it, I've been working on it all day.

I think this film deserved it's Oscar win, and the Best Director Oscar for Redford, and unfortunately I don't think Timothy Hutton has bettered this performance, he should have been nominated for Best Actor, as it is very much his film, not the Best Supporting Actor award that he won.

And I'd heartily recommend it... as a film that makes you think, about love and the different ways we all need and express it, about the nature of families and the way people change and react following tragedy.

Calvin (to Beth): We would have been all right if there hadn't been any mess. But you can't handle mess. You need everything neat and easy. I don't know. Maybe you can't love anybody. It was so much Buck. When Buck died, it was like you buried all your love with him, and I don't understand that, I just don't know, I don't... maybe it wasn't even Buck; maybe it was just you. Maybe, finally, it was the best of you that you buried. But whatever it was... I don't know who you are. I don't know what we've been playing at. So I was crying. Because I don't know if I love you any more. And I don't know what I'm going to do without that.

I've watched this film several times over the years, it was one of the first video's we borrowed when we bought our first VCR, and I now own my own DVD. Every time I watch it, I flashback to that first viewing, sitting next to my Mum, with sopping wet feet, sharing a single tissue between us (we peeled the tissues ply apart). And it seems strange, that I still count this as one of my favourite films, you'd think I would avoid it.

But seeing that film, that night, helped a lot. It was the first time I ever saw a film that looked at the issue of suicide in this way. And while the end of the film is incredibly sad, it's also quite hopeful... and it helped me to understand not only the role my father and his illness played in my own life and my own thought processes, but my mother's role in that too.

I am, or have been, all of those characters at different times. The child, desperately trying to understand the parent and have them love them. The man, desperate to stop his family from disintegrating around him. And the woman, desperate to pretend that everything is right in her world...

Quotes I Live My Life By...

"I think the world is ready for the story of an ugly duckling, who grew up to remain an ugly duckling, and lived happily ever after" - Chick (I have no idea who this is)

"Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle" - Lewis Carroll

"Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try" - Theodor Geisel, Dr. Seuss

"Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then" - Katherine Hepburn

"No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions" - Henry Ward Beecher

"I love people, I love my family... but inside myself is a place where I live alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up" - Pearl S. Buck

"She is too fond of books, it has turned her brain" - Louisa May Alcott

"Love doesn't make the world go 'round, loves what makes the ride worthwhile" - Franklin P. Jones

"If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle" - Rita Mae Brown

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination" - John Lennon

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats" - Albert Schweitzer

"Remember to always be yourself, unless you suck..." - Josh Whedon

"Dance like it hurts, love like you need money, work when people are watching" - Scott Adams

"I met a wonderful new man. He's fictional but you can't have everything" - The Purple Rose of Cairo/Woody Allen

"Here's all you have to know about men and women. Women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy, is because men are stupid" - George Carlin

"Age is something that doesn't matter - unless you are a cheese" - Billie Burke

"I've never been a millionaire but I just know I'd be darling at it" - Dorothy Parker

Songs to Remember By...

On Wednesday night, following a recommendation from Jappa, 3 friends and I went to see the gala launch of the Choir of Hard Knocks at the Melbourne Town Hall, which was truly inspirational. They sang like angels, and we all found ourselves moved to tears and I'd heartily recommend you try to catch them if they come to your area.

I've realised that music is something that I can measure my life by, important and not so important moments, both good and bad times... there is usually some song that reflects that time or feelings, with songs capable of bringing back a time and place so vividly...

I love music, and love singing, though was told as a young girl in the school choir to sing 'quietly' i.e. mime, so was very self-conscious of singing for most of my life... and equally as self-conscious of dancing until I hit my 30s (would only dance when I was drunk before then and then I would dance on the tables!).

That doesn't stop music from being as vital as breathing to me... so here then are some of the songs that reflect me and my life...

Someday, One Day - The Seekers (people say your a dreamer, what do they know of what your thinking, if you believe in what your doing, then believe in what I say)- this creates the most vivid memory of first year at primary school, and being dropped off at a family friends house before school. I have never been much of a morning person, even as a little girl, so being bundled out of the house to go to a strangers home at the start of each day was a stress for me... but this song, which must have been in the charts at the time always seemed to be on the radio, and we got warm porridge and honey for breakfast ...yum...

Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime - Dean Martin - we had a turquoise VW beetle with a radio that didn't work, so car trips usually involved us kids sitting in the back singing songs to entertain my Dad. Invariably, he would warble this to us - but changing the lyrics to 'something in your kiss just told me, I've just kissed a cow!

Lullaby of Broadway - goodnight baby, goodnight, the milkman's on his way, sleep tight baby, sleep tight, let's call it a day - my first dance lessons, in a local hall with the daughter of a neighbour, we did a dance routine to this song, a sort of tap/ ballet fusion... I was probably 6 and already completely uncoordinated and had such a miserable time of it that I didn't dance on stage again until I was 38!

Lipstick on Your Collar - Connie Francis - this is one for Miss La De Da - her and my sister age about 10, learning the lyrics and putting on a show for the family. For some reason this song also has the visual memory of MLDD masticating a banana sandwich with her mouth open... yuk!

Slipstream -Sherbet, Living in the 70's - Skyhooks, High Voltage - AC/DC, Hard Road - Stevie Wright - the soundtrack of my teens, the first 4 albums I bought when I got a part-time job in a lotto/record/gift store. My first concert, Festival Hall, Buster Brown with Angry Anderson on vocals, Skyhooks just as their first album was released and Sherbet!

Turn the Beat Around - Vicki Sue Robinson - 17 years old, Collingwood Districts Football Club Disco - at a hall in Carlton North every Saturday night, $3 for chicks, $8 for blokes, as most of the chicks brought their Asti Spumante, and they had a keg of beer for the boys. I drank beer with the usual result of being totally rat-assed by the end of the night. A gorgeous (think young Robert Redford) boy used to pounce on me most Saturdays, put my hand in the back pocket of his jeans, and dance close, telling all and sundry I was his wife... and then completely blank me if he saw me on the street during the week, only to repeat the whole routine the following Saturday... talk about being confused... He gave me my first (and probably only) illicit drug, telling me it would make me feel better, and then had to spend the night wrapped around me in the backseat of a car while I screamed and howled my way down from the trip from hell. He spread the word that anyone giving me anything stronger than beer was going to answer to him, and then blackened his mate's eye when mate shoved a bottle under my nose, saying sniff this!

Counting the Beat - The Swingers - my semi-punk days, short peroxide blonde hair, with jet black wispy bits stuck to my cheek, a multi-coloured bomber jacket, tight black skirt, one aqua stocking, one red, covered by fishnets... thought I was really cool, but never wore the outfit again after we walked into the pub one night to hear 'OK, we can start now, the circus has arrived'

Walking on the Moon - The Police - giant steps are what you take, walking on the moon, I hope my legs don't break, walking on the moon - first full-time job, living away from home for the first time in a share house with 2 chicks and a bloke in Richmond. The band stayed at the motel I worked at their first tour out, and we saw them play at Festival Hall...

Gonna Fly Now - The Theme from Rocky - aah, liniment, smelly socks and boys... football club rooms and the big difference between juniors and seniors is that seniors like to walk around naked... oh my... I don't like football... I like footballers!

Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac - My First Love sang this to me the night we met... both slightly intoxicated, sleepily sitting on Gossy's mum's couch close to midnight after he'd played in the winning grand final for his local team. He sang this quietly into my ear while he stroked my hair and then he kissed me... **

No Lies - Noiseworks - one of my groupie stages++ (no sex though drats!)... sent the guys a bunch of balloons while they were recording their first album in Melbourne and came home to a gorgeous message on the machine from Jon Stevens. Meet them after a gig at the then Bell Street Rock one Easter, and they put my name on the door for every Melbourne gig for the next few years. Even got an invite up to Sydney for the filming of an MTV special when the album was released.

How Do I Live Without You - Trisha Yearwood, Easy - Faith No More, Throwing Cooper - Live - sitting on the swings at Fairfield Park at 3.00am talking to Angus Folly Boy on our first date, and his relief after about half an hour of debate in discovering yes, we did like some of the same music - he was a metal head, and I'm a musical theatre girl! I sprinkled these songs through mix tapes that I played at ten pin bowling and we'd make eye contact across a crowded bowling alley and smile at each other.

Big Spender - Sweet Charity - so let me get right to the point, I don't pop my cork for every guy I see - finally putting the past and self-consciousness behind me and belting this out at karaoke at a work Christmas Party without worrying about what I sounded like... the fact that I was 12 kinds of pissed probably helped... but singing the love song duet with my boss at midnight was probably a bad move...

Would you...? - Touch and Go -I've noticed you around, I find you very attractive, would you, um, um, would you go to bed with me? - I laughed out loud (it was either that or cry) when this was playing on the radio after leaving Angus Folly Boy's house the ill-fated night he planned the big seduction scene. I arrived to find him almost crippled with back pain, which was bad enough, and then his brother deliberately came home to check me out, when he'd been told to stay away - add a malamute that went for the crotch snuggle every time she came into the room and his bedroom walls covered with photo's of naked women in poses only their gyno should see and is it any wonder I said there was no way I was going to get naaaaked!

The Healer - John Lee Hooker - first time I got my feet and brain to work in sync at Miss Lou Lou's Tap Dancing Academy, age 38! Heah ma, I can dance!%% Went on to dance at the National Theatre to The MilkShake - The Village People dressed as a cow, Tijuana Taxi by Herb Albert in sombrero and poncho and a fake moustache that kept falling off, as a gold tinselly sausage, I mean, showgirl to Madonna's Hanky Panky, and my swan-song - Singing in the Rain by Gene Kelly dressed as a duck!

** MFL is still the kisser against whom all other kissers are judged...

++ Wrote to bass player of MiSex once, and we started a telephone/ letter exchange for awhile - he'd ring when the band were down and we'd chat about music and stuff, and again, my name on the door at gigs, but I never actually met him...


%% Well, actually I can't really... why a girl who spends most of her time dancing from the waist up, lots of hand gestures, not a lot of foot work, ever took up tap is beyond me. The first time I ever persevered with something I suck at big time! It was fun, but after 5 years you were actually expected to be pretty good!!!

Live long and prosper...

Yes Jonathon, not all quilts are pretty....

Isn't this the most amazing quilt top!

This is a quilt swap that was started in February 2001, and many years, and tears and frustrations later, we have our completed quilt tops back.

It was originally meant to be a Sci-Fi Round Robin - a Round Robin is were you make a centre, and then progressively it is sent on and others add to it, and you receive other people's quilts and add to theirs.

Almost immediately it became apparent that we wanted to do Trekkie quilts - except poor 'birdwoman' who wanted a Red Dwarf quilt...

I wanted to make this for my brother, who has been a die-hard Trekkie from the beginning. And I converted a Spock pattern from a jack-o-lantern pattern I found on the web. And off it went in February 2001 and has been on a journey where no man has gone before ever since.

We had quilt tops that went missing in people's house moves, only to resurface years later - this was one of those! And I took a quilt top to a shop to buy fabric, and came home with the fabric and no quilt top... that one was re-done (almost) from scratch.

And well... life just got in the way for a lot of us... and I discovered I don't cope very well with enforced creativity... give me a priority on the creative front and I'll find everything under the sun to avoid it. ** But we persevered and the rewards speak for themselves.

It's particularly poignant and fitting that the final round - the row of purple and aqua flying geese 'saucers' with the squiggly text has Vulcan script that says 'Live Long and Prosper, Micheal' considering my brother is slowly recovering from having lost his kidney, appendix and gallbladder to cancer early in the New Year.

So - to the Sci-Fi RR girls - Sonia, Sheila, Judy and Angela - thank you.

And below is a picture of Sheila's finished quilt top - my bit is the final text around the edges - took forever! We managed to sneak quite a lot of 'Red Dwarf' into it, wouldn't you agree?


** Should have known - I started to knit a jumper for my then brother-in-law's 21st birthday, and finished all of it, except one sleeve...he's 45 this year and now very much an outlaw!

Does not bode well for the wedding quilt I started for my 'first true love' and his lady... they've just celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary... sigh...actually don't like it now...

Dad...

I'll apologise in advance for anyone who is expecting a laughfest... though considering most of the people reading this are friends, I hope they'll indulge me.

I wrote the other day a Valentine to all my gorgeous girls, with the intention of following it up with a similar blog on the boys I love and have found I've struggled to do so. Not because there aren't any, as there are, though interestingly not as many boys as there are girls.

And what's been interesting for me, is how I've struggled to write about them, these boys, old and new, who have influenced, guided and encouraged me. I've drafted endless paragraphs in my head about them, but haven't been able to post something.

Today, one of those very new boys, told me that I often make dismissive statements, like 'I forget you're a boy' or 'of course, you'd say that, you're a man' etc. He's right, I do. There's some part of me that struggles to understand men, and I told him that the scary thing about him was that he didn't scare me... I think he's more than a bit perplexed... as he's not a scary person at all... quite the opposite, as he's been nothing but friendly and supportive and nurturing...

Bottom line is that I don't trust men... not easily... and therefore I let very few of them get close enough to truly know me... and in talking to a friend tonight realised that I can't write about those boys without writing about the first male to influence me... and I've been sitting here re-reading something I wrote about him in the weeks following his death. Below is the edited version of that writing:

My father died on September 3 2003, Age 68. He was a manic depressive, though he went undiagnosed until his 40s, prior to that self-medicating with alcohol and frequent trips in and out of hospital when the self-medication didn't work and he self harmed. We were estranged at the time of his death, something I chose to do, as I found that in order to be happy and healthy I needed to step away from the demands of his illness.

I've been thinking a lot about him lately, since the anniversary of his death, which coincides with the date I started my current job and it feels like the start of another chapter of my life. I've known for awhile that I needed to write about him...just couldn't work out in what way.

I loved him... as only a little girl loves her Daddy, but I learned very early on that I needed to read him to determine what kind of mood he was in, and as a consequence, learn to adapt my mood and temperament to match his.

While Dad was diagnosed as manic depressive what he really suffered or was blessed with, was too much emotion. He felt things deeply, and sometimes was unable to filter out those feelings till they overwhelmed him, and he'd need to retreat to heal himself.

He was quite open about his illness and taught us not to be ashamed of our emotions, nor to ever be ashamed of him or ourselves.

He would announce he was cured, flush all of his meds down the toilet, and then a week later give away all of his worldly possessions and often other people's worldly possessions and then ask for them back when he felt more himself.

His illness made him selfish, often cruel and thoughtless. He disowned and reclaimed us dozens of times in the years after he left Mum. And he used his illness sometimes as an excuse for terrible behaviour.

He was a naturally funny man... but behind some of the jokes, there was often an underlying cruelty. And while openly affectionate, every kiss you received might be followed with a slap!

For a chubby, shy and easily embarassed girl, having your father act the Court Jester was often a terrible thing, particularly when it was at your expense, probably why I'm so quick to make funny, biting remarks about myself... if I use those words, they're mine, I own them, and they no longer have the power to hurt me.

Probably also why I struggle to receive compliments, I keep waiting for the tagline... and for me to end up the stooge.

But despite all of that, I loved him. My Dad knew what it was like to be perfectly content and almost joyful and knew great happiness by taking pleasure in the simplest of things.

He loved a good joke - the cornier the better. Did you hear the one about the 2 peanuts walking through the park, one was a salted! If a bricklayer lays bricks why doesn't a plumber lay plums?

He was the first person to make light of a subject, particularly himself. He terrorised the neighbourhood kids with tales about his lost fingers (he lost 4 fingers on one hand at the first knuckle in a workplace accident at 15), telling them that that's what happened if you picked your nose!

He loved food - particularly sweets. ‘What’s for pudding” was often far more important than what was for dinner. His favourite words in the universe were 'all you can eat buffet'.

Dad loved music, almost all kinds, but particularly music from the 30s and 40s and the Broadway musicals, especially Rogers and Hammerstein. He had the soul of a musician but not a single musical talent at all, but it was a form of escape for him and we were able to judge his mood by the music he chose to play.

If he was playing You'll Never Walk Alone or Oh My Papa - he was best avoided. But more often then not he was prancing around the house singing I'm Going to Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair, or Oh What a Beautiful Morning.

He also loved movies – a legacy that lingers on his children and grandchildren, but he especially loved anything that was about families, Mrs Miniver, the Best Years of Our Lives, Cheaper by the Dozen, Little Women. Dad used to cancel bed times if there was a movie in the TV guide he felt we needed to see and I can remember sitting curled up on his knee watching Little Women (the June Allyson version) and we both cried when Beth died. And being allowed to stay up late to watch Carousel and crying with him again.

Movie’s for him had to be one of three things, they had to make you laugh, they had to make you cry and they had to have a happy ending. I guess that’s why he loved musicals.

He was simply a study in contradictions.

And I have discovered that I am very much my father's daughter. His legacy lives on in me, in my wry and slightly twisted humour and my willingness to play the clown. And also in my love of the shared experiences of meal times and conversation, music and laughter surrounded by family and friends - each are such healing things for me.

But at the same time I know I am stronger than he was... or I strive to be... aiming to make the most of every day and every experience...

I like to think I am the best of him...that after 45 years of trying... that I understand who he was and accept him for who he was...

Now I need to do a little bit more work on accepting who I am... so that when a handsome, witty, charming, intelligent (and modest) boy tells me that I'm funny and clever that I'll believe him... even just a little...