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i remember: my parents.

i have always envied those of my friends who have warm loving families.
mine wasn’t like that.
don’t worry this isn’t going to be and doom and gloom piece about how i was mentally or physically abused.
the space between me and my parents happened as i got older, both my parents were alcoholics, it is one of the prices you pay for being publicans. the booze brought out the worst in them. dad was a quiet drunk and for the last 10 years or so of his life i doubt there was a day he was sober. mum was a binge drinker and when she decided to hit the bottle she would down it greedily and guiltily, hiding her scotch in a cup and pretending she was drinking tea. when mum had a skinful she would turn on dad and the litany of wrongs would issue forth. mostly dad would soak it up as payment for any wrongs he had committed, occasionally he would enter the battle.
the next day it was as if nothing had happened.
it put a strain on my relationship with them.

i know they loved me. i know they did everything they could for me.
i loved them as well.

i fell out with dad one night when he drunkenly made his way over to annemarie’s flat. we got into an argument about something stupid and he walked out. we never repaired the damage of that evening.

my mum came over to england back in the 50s and there she experienced the racism of the time: no dogs and no irish. later on she would be a mild (if there is such a thing) racist herself. she studied to be a nurse but ended up working in hotels. where she met dad.
dad was the son of a docker, who fought in the battle of cable street. dad was in the leisure industry all his life. either in pubs, clubs or hotels.

they were both very intelligent, but with only a moderate amount of schooling. they encouraged me to be as good as student as i could be. they made sure i could go to polytechnic, i am sure they would have preferred to have a lawyer or a doctor for a son, but they didn’t care as long as i was doing what i wanted.

they encouraged my silly dreams of being a rugby star. dad turned up to all the school games shouting from the touchline, much to my embarrassment. he tried to get me a schoolboy trial with wasps. mum on the other hand made sure my kit was clean, and took me out to get the right boots and such like.

they made sure there were books in the house. true they may have encouraged me to read the wrong things, but i have never looked back on my crime novel and sf reading habits. they taught me a love of books.

they appreciated my feeble attempts at writing. they smiled at my photos. they made it seem worthwhile and something that had merit.

mum never quite understood why i wanted to have long hair and a beard and nagged me from my teenage year right through until she died. once even saying i should have a haircut like the nice mr griffths who played snooker (it was a foul mullet lite affair). she never gave up on her quest to have me suited and booted.
dad never understood why i never became a publican. the truth was twofold. i had seen what the booze and pressure had done to them and i never had dad’s ease with people.
if my parents were genetically predisposed to create one type of child it was one who had the gift of the gab. both of them could talk for england. i have inherited the ability to talk constantly but not their skills with the storytelling. both of them could spin a yarn or three. in that list of long regrets i have: one of them is that i never wrote their tall tales down.

they both had full laughs. they both had the ability to find a lot to laugh at.

i got my first tattoo after my dad had died. i could never told my mum i had one (and then 4), the one time i tried she told me that if god had intended us to have tattoos he would have painted us. there was a night i was staying over at mum’s, as was my wont i had a late night bath, went back to the living room to watch some tv and then fell asleep naked on the floor. around 2am mum comes into the room to find out what was going on – i wasn’t sure what to cover up my family jewels or the tattoos.

they both smoked a tremendous amount, on average 40 a day. towards the end of her life mum had cut down to a few a day. the only reason i didn’t smoke was because i couldn’t get the fags to light, i doubt either of my parents would have told me it was a bad thing to do.
the rules they gave me to live buy were the ones they lived by, so there was little of the do as i say and not do as i do, school of parenting.

mum put up with me becoming a veggie. she put up with me going back on meat.
she worried when i lost too much weight, then worried when i put a lot back on.

they provided me with my moral compass, although i didn’t follow their support of small c conservatism.

i never got a chance to say goodbye to either of them. dad worked, drank and smoked right up until the day he was taken into hospital. a week later her was dead. mum had dressed him for the hospital and when she was going through his stuff at the hospital she found enough money for a cab fare home and a half bottle of gin. he had planned to come home in his own way and in his own time. he died the way he wanted to.

mum died at home, she died in her sleep. when i found her she was asleep on the couch, the tv on. she looked like she did so many other evenings. finding her like that was the closest i have ever come to drinking, well she wouldn’t have wanted me wasting the scotch she had in the kitchen.

i found gallows humour in their funerals. dad’s funeral director was frank black. mum’s priest had trouble with her full name.

i was proud to know them. all the good things about me came from them. i doubt i have been the son that they wanted, but there is still time. all in all i miss them, and i wish they were still here. i remember my dad talking about some trees he saw on his way to work. there were just three of them in a field. to him they represented his family. whatever their differences they loved each other, and i know they loved me. i guess that all any of us can ask.

mum, dad wherever you are i hope that you are both raising a glass (or two) in celebration. i thank you and i miss you,