10 Things found in a drawer (7, 8)

 

On the right is a Bibel that belonged to my dad oresented to him when he was 11. My grandfather was a Roman Catholic but my grandmother was something of a Baptist and so my dad was sent to the nearby Sunday School. This was the first Bible I used when I was converted at the age of 12 in mys own nearby Baptist Church. On the left is an abandoned box containing various cards that I have used in the past in order to try to memorise Scripture.

10 Things found in a drawer (1, 2)

 

Sorting through a drawer I found a number of things that may be of interest. I may have shown the "I like Ringo" badge here before. It came in a lucky bag or Jamboree bag (3d a shot). I just saw one on sale in ebay for £16. The other item is an unused blazer badge that belonged to my dad. The choir has since amalhgamated with the Cwmbran to form the Torfaen Male Choir.

Would have been 89

Had he lived, my dad would have been 89 today. Still remembered with great fondness.

My niece did this very good likeness years back.

My dad December 2007

Stumbled across this shot of my dad, 78, speaking to Rhodri and Sibyl in December 2007. I miss him.

An anecdote from childhood

John Grayson, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I just put this on another blog of mine.
My father was a fine sportsman. His main sports were soccer, (British) baseball and swimming. I never saw him play soccer but I did see him play baseball on the winning side in a final in 1965. I also remember watching him swimming once. It was at Maindee swimming baths in Newport and the annual Girlings swimming Gala (which we all pronounced Gayler) again some time around 1965. I can see my dad now in his green bathers lining up for the obstacle race. He was 6' 2" and had perfected an amazing racing dive so when they were started he went straight into the lead and I was sure he would win. But my mother knew better and tried to prepare me. One of the obstacles was to bite through balloons and she knew that with his false dentures (which he had from the age of 21) he wouldn't be able to go on as fast as the younger men. And so it proved. He came in third and won a set of three decorated chalice style beer glasses, which we had for years and almost never used.
(By 1965 my dad was 36).

A boy's adventure

 

I recently cast eyes on a kukri or Gurkha knife. There used to be one in our house. All my dad's brothers were in the army or similar (they also all drove lorries at some point - my dad did neither) and I guess an uncle in the Welsh Guards came across the knife and brought it home for my dad. It's really an ornament but obviously could do damage and on one occasion I remember my dad using it to cut down a tree or branch.

I must have been five or six (we had not long moved house I recall). Anyway, my mother wanted a clothes line prop. This was a fairly long bit of wood with a V at the end. Now understand that I am a real townie and my dad never took me fishing or hunting or anything like that (although he may have done some such at some point when he was younger). So one Sunday morning I accompany him down to the woods. There are still plenty of wooded areas in my home town (Croesyceiliog, Cwmbran) although there were more then and I think the place where we ended up has now been built over (Snowdon Court?). I don't remember much but we went into the woods and found what we were looking for. My dad hacked into the required prop and then (best bit of all) we carried it home between us (at least that's how I remember it, I was probably not contributing much) to my mother who was delighted at her new line prop. That thing lasted for quite a while until new ideas like rotary clothes driers and so on came in. My dad has been dead a few years now and my mam much longer but it's fond memories like that one that keep their memory alive for me. Barely a day goes by without me thinking of them and all sorts of things can trigger a memory such as the knife above. How God blessed me giving me two parents for so long.

10 things that remind me of my dad

1. Baseball (British)
2. Tobacco
3. Golden Shred marmalade
4. Camphorated ointment
5. Fry up
6. Glenn Miller and clarinets
7. Halibut oil capsules/Cribbage board (I accidentally did two number sevens)
8. Monmouthshire v All Blacks 1967
9. Windsor knotted tie
10. Dance floor

TTRMOMD 10

So here's my final one of these. It's a dance floor. My dad was a life long dancer (as was my mam) 14-late seventies anyway. Dad wa always keen on a good floor. I remember seeing this place in Pontypool he used to dance at on Saturday nights and expressing doubts about it. "Lovely floor" was his answer. Sadly, I haven't followed in his dance steps having two left feet and no real sense of rhythm.

TTRMOMD 09

My dad was always very neat about the collar. He always used a Windsor knot, which he taught me to do.
I think other knots look rather naff.

TTRMOMD 08

Being in St David's Day mode my mind has gone back to St David's Day as a child in Junior School, when it was always a half day at school (we'd spend the morning drawing something Welsh - a leek or a daffodil - the girls would wear traditional clothes with black top hats you could buy from local shops). We'd also get a half day if there was a rugby game on (my dad was a soccer man and would sometimes moan that they didn't do that for soccer). Anyway on the afternoon of December 6, 1967 (I was 8) my dad took me to Rodney Parade in Newport to watch Monmouthshire play the touring New Zealanders (who only lost one game that tour). The great Keith Jarrett (not the jazz pianist) whose career was tragically cut short by strokes when only 25, was playing, and Monmouthshire did well thanks to his kicking, eventually losing 23-12. All I remember is Jarrett kicking a lot of goals and that they wore black shorts. It might have been the only rugby game my dad took me to (not sure how he had time off work).

TTRMOMD 07b

My dad liked a game of cards from time to time and we had an old home made cribbage board which I have featured here before in the house. I was familiar with it for years before I knew what it was for. The very word cribbage takes me to my dad, I guess.

TTRMOMD 07a



My dad was a great believer in halibut oil capsules. We were encouraged to take one a day, which we did for years as kids.  How much good it did, I don't know.



TTRMOMD 06

As a mere photo, this is useless. What I remember and what I cannot convey to you is the smell of camphorated ointment. For years we had a little grey cardbard box of it with a hand written label in the bathroom. I was no asthmatic but if I did go to bed with a chesty cold my dad would make sure I had a liberal dos of camphorated ointment on my chest. How well it worked I don't know but the smell was pleasant enough and the fact that he believed so much in it was enough for me. Aaah, I miss my dad.

TTRMOMD 05

It was a tradition in our house to have a fry up or mixed grill on Satrudays. It was my dad's tradition. Our version featured egg, sausage, bacon, fat bread (as my dad called it ie fried white bread), black pudding, egg and beans (done in the frying pan after the bacon and sausage.

TTRMOMD 04

This picture shows the inimitable Glenn Miller shaking hands with a clarinetist and illustrates the fact that not only Glenn Miller but the clarinet itself always reminds me of my dad. Apparently the key to the Glenn Miller sound involves a clarinet.

TTRMOMD 03

In the early years my dad worked in Girlings brake factory and would take sandwiches with him to work. Always marmalade, always Robertson's (okay Silver Shred sometimes if they didn't have the Golden Shred)

TTRMOMD 02

I've mentioned before that when I was younger my dad rolled his own cigarettes. Consequently tins like this one were everywhere. I still have one or two.

TTRMOMD 01

Following the series of things that remind me of my mam, I thought that to be fair there ought to be one for my dad. This first is baseball, ie British baseball, which I remember him playing on the ground pictured above. I'm not sure when this picture was taken. Baseball is not the summer game of many places but it is of Newport and Liverpool. I have often wondered if it is a Roman Catholic thing (my dad had a Romanist background) as sports sometimes divide on sectarian lines.

Dad's funeral

As I blog so many things here and have had a great deal to say about my father over the last few months, I thought it right to say something about the funeral last Friday. We headed to Cardiff last Thursday evening after the school concert. We stayed with Eleri's sister and family and then went to Gail's the next morning. We were driven from there in two cars behind the hearse (via Hazel Walk where we grew up) the short distance to the chapel. It was a cold but clear day. With Dylan, Dewi, Uncle John and an old neighbour (Alan) I helped carry the coffin into the chapel, where around seventy family and friends had gathered.
John Edmonds, pastor of the Pontrhydyrun church, led the service. John began with Scripture verses and prayer then we sang How great Thou art. He then read part of Psalm 25, which was very helpful.
Using material we had supplied and his own knowledge, John sketched my dad's life from his birth in 1929 through to those last months when he knew he was going to die. John explained how he at least became convinced that my dad came to trust in Christ. He was at pains to make clear that it wasn't that dad was a good bloke after all or that it is easy to come to faith at the end. I found a lot of help in what he said. Since I became a Christian I have tried to pray for my dad and I think it is right now that I must believe that God answered my prayers (and those of others) for him as for my sister and mother.
My Uncle John spoke next. He was understandably emotional and failed to stick to anything prepared. His main point was that my dad had a power to cheer people up when he came into a room, which is very true. John then went on to thank individuals for coming - family members, my father-in-law who he recognised from my wedding. When his eye lighted on his cousin Ron he chided him for not answering letters. We laughed. That's how a Brady deals with grief.
John then prayed a prayer of thanks and read from Jonah 2 the passage he felt led to preach on. I wasn't sure why he had gone there at first but his point was that Jonah was a man who realised before it was too late that he had been running from God. Jonah was "lucky" - God used his near death experience in the great fish to wake him up to reality. My dad had said to John that he was lucky to be told he had a short time to live. It is not always like that. We will all die however and so we need to see that we are running from God and need to get right. It was clear gospel but how it was taken I don't really know.
The service closed with the hymn At the name of Jesus, prayer and benediction.
We then went to the nearby crematorium. Rhodri helped us to transport the coffin this time. We entered and left to the sound of my dad's favourite Glenn Miller track American Patrol (as he always desired). We stood for the short committal. John used that crucial word "brother". For me to use that word is difficult but I think I must by faith. It is not the conversion I imagined and it may be that is partly to humble me.
We then headed back to the chapel for some refreshments. It was a blessing to speak with family members (big ones from my dad's family, small ones from my mam's side), old friends from Pontrhydyrun, former neighbours, etc. People are so kind.
We then headed back to Gail's. After Geoff and Iola and Rhodri and Sibyl had headed back to Aber we went for a meal together in the Ash Bridge. It was a happy time for us orphans.
We then headed back to Cardiff.
The next morning, before heading home, we buried my dad's ashes with my mother's in the chapel graveyard (there were just eight of us with John and the undertaker). I'm not a fan of cremation but to see my dad's ashes in a tiny wooden box when he had been in a long wooden box just hours before had its own powerful testimony.
Sunday was a good day but I'm a little numb. Monday was difficult in some ways. It's different to when my mother died for all sorts of reasons. Being sober is a good thing.

Notebook, tin and nutcracker

Okay, I think this is the last. Here we have an old red spined purple hardbacked notebook that was my grandmother's. It mostly contains addresses and phone numbers and recipes and I remember it well and with affection. Then there is a rusty nutcracker that used to come out at Christmas. Finally, and best of all, an old tin in which my mother would keep pins (see another example in the second photo). Interestingly, it was made by the D F Tayler Company and once contained (well named) Dorcas dressmaking pins.