My Dad

Bob (right) with his father and cousin Joan, 1930s

Brushing my sparse hair each morning I think of my Dad. I can’t avoid it; I am using his hairbrush and visualise him doing so one hundred years ago.

Marked with a silver F it is showing its age, the bristles worn down to the ebony, but I love the link, made more precious because I knew him for far too short a time

I was sixteen when Dad died suddenly. I had just started my career as a reporter. It was 1942 and like all families at the time we were separated by the war.

In my growing up years I saw too little of him. Before we moved to Cardiff he worked long hours, arriving home at Bushey Road, West Ham, in the evening. It was a rare treat when Bert,  Dorothy and I went to the underground station in the evening to walk home hand in hand with him

He was interested in all we did, proud of us, encouraging us.

He enjoyed the few rare occasions he watched me play cricket and my proudest possession was a cricket bat he bought me. It was very special. It had the signatures of the England and New Zealand test teams from, Robert tells me, 1937.

I used it for many years -  due to my leg problems cricket was the only game I could still play after having to give up football, rugby and hockey when I was twenty years old.

Robert is now looking after that battered bat with which I never was able to score a century. My top score was 70 on the fabled Arms Park pitch in Cardiff.

Dad’s life was marred by illness when he was lovingly nursed by Mum, and he was seriously injured when his steam crane toppled over as he was driving it at Sparrows wharf on the Thames at Wandsworth.

The day he died I was called out of Penarth police station where I was reporting a case, knowing as I made my way home that it was serious.

It was. He died on December 21and his funeral was on Christmas Eve.

My memories, strong and comforting, are brought to life every morning as I brush my hair.