Water

So im a bit naff and havent been as regular as perhaps i should be. That being the case when i havent an original thought ill recycle bits and bats id written previously. Ill start with this one cos, well… I like it.

Ive been thinking about my Dad a lot recently. No real reason that I can think of and it occurred to me that every day that goes by my memory of him fades a little. I tried to write down a few stories to kind of set them in the cement of my mind, but I realise that the story’s I write are the ones that don’t really put him in the greatest of lights. I considered this for a while and I tried to think of something I could write that would redress the balance. And the fact is I have more happy memories of him than negative ones by a massive yard. But its all moments, snatched smiles and feelings.

The vast majority of those involve water. I used to take the mick out of him quite a lot for the way he would pick up a hobby and then drop it within a few months. Hed go all in and apply himself and usually get annoyingly good and then inevitably move onto something else. I still have a fishing basket filled with camera junk from when he went all David Baily on me. No photos, just the cameras. But in fairness to him he was a young adult in the seventies. Just before and after all the fun stuff happened. The one thing he never really let go of was boats. When I was very young we would travel up to Manningham park and we would head for the boating pool. The two main boats I remember us sailing were the small trawler and a more natural sailing boat. We tried the massive model of a ship that had one the first Americas cup, but it was a little too big to really be fun to sail. That lake is also the first place I remember going out in a boat with Dad as he took me out in the rowing boats you could hire. I have vivid memories of crouching down by the poolside and putting that trawler in it, racing round to the other side to save it when the controls didn’t work. Just joyful.

I have a dim memory of rowing boats out in the sea off the coast of Scarborough, Mainly the hippys trying to roll, im assuming, cigarettes under a coat in bad weather or my cousins and I fishing deadlines while Dad looked on. His fascination with boats and the water never left him and he was never happier and more himself than when he was around it. He and his girlfriend at the time Fiona decided to actually learn how to sail. I remember wetsuits and sextants turning up in the house. Then Fiona bought a dinghy and they repaired and restored it to beautiful condition in what used to be the front bedroom. They really did a magnificent job on it, it looked amazing when they were done. And then he taught me how to sail in it.

I joined my schools sailing club to get more time in boats, but the most fun I had was when I was crewing for him. He was at his most relaxed then and could be the ball of charisma that he was. And when we weren’t sailing we were around water. He went on to become a windsurfing instructor, but I was too deep into moody teen to let him talk me into learning. In fact im pretty sure he never asked. But that meant on the weekends we would travel to the Lake District and I would be free to mess around on whatever sailing boats were available or left to my own devices. His fascination with boats is the thread that goes throughout my childhood, everything else came and went. All my happiest memories of him there was a body of water nearby and we were about to go play on it.