Dear Chroniclers,
around two years ago, I wrote a short piece entitled,
"Captain Fantastic and the Dirt-Kneed Schoolboy", all about my late father. So with a New Year just begun, I thought it might be an appropriate time to capture some precious memories of childhood. There are ten in all ... count 'em as you go!
1. Diving deep into the bathwater with the Captain as a very young child, then swimming up into a plastic wash-basket floating on the surface of the water.
2. The thick nicotine-stained finger-tips of my father, tobacco-brown and smoke-curled.
3. Running free through a field of sun-baked grass in search of leaping grasshoppers, with the Captain close behind.
4. The rich smell of frying bacon as he cooks family breakfast on a Saturday.
5. Sunday's out, and a metal-tray of pub-drinks we consume in the car en route to a picnic. A pint of best for the Captain, a "Cherry B" for the Black Dowager, shandy for eldest brother, two glasses of warm lemonade, one each for electrofried and baby brother ... and soggy crisps for all, with magic blue-bagged salt!
6. The Captain sitting at our breakfast-room table with richly coloured feathers, a line and hook, delicately tying the fly for fishing the next day.
7. A drive down to Bishop Stortford to see the house we never moved into. He died in a lay-by a few months later.
8. Visiting the Captain's offices at the weekend. Inter-coms and slide-rules, a week of smoke sinking deep into the fabric of the place.
9. Big-band jazz played loud on the radio in the car, whilst a strange coloured speedometer thread moves to red as we speed the length of a motorway.
10. Buying fish and chips for a group of visiting Americans, our food smothered in vinegar and wrapped tight in newspaper.
And here's a photo of the man ...
Hope you have a great New Year!
best regards,
electrofried(mr)
