I grew up during the war, spending most of my early life living with my beloved Grandmother as my mother had died when I was quite young. We lived in London, and like other children who hadn’t been evacuated at the start of the war, we lived through the blitz with bombs dropping all around us. I used to scramble through the rubble finding trophies to take home, bits of shrapnel and the like.
I loved my Grandmother and lived in the comfort of her bosom with my two sisters until she got sick when I was 11 years old and we were unceremoniously torn away from her and sent to live with our other Grandmother in Wales. A Grandmother who hated boys but doted on my little sister. I tried so hard to earn her love by being a good boy.
Bereft and feeling abandoned I just got on with it but deeply missed the love and security bestowed on me by my Grandmother. Two years later, the war ended but I wasn’t allowed to go home.
I went to University where I met my wife and we were blessed to raise 4 of the 5 children born to us.
We moved to a big old house with a large garden full of fruit trees, in a comfortable suburb in North Kent. The kids loved it and, although we’d stretched ourselves as far as we dared financially, we loved it. Playing cricket in the back garden, climbing trees, digging a swimming pool which ended up as a pond with a hump bridge over, for which we had an opening ceremony with the dog, lots of children and cherryade. Our home became a mecca for children, especially at Sunday tea time when the table was laden with fresh baked rolls, cakes, jelly and ice cream, like a scene out of the Darling Buds of May.
I threw myself into fatherhood, loving every moment. But behind that love was a terrifying fear. A fear I shared with no-one.
I feared that I would be thrown in prison and wouldn’t be able to see my children. The burden of that fear used to weigh me down and I would awaken with my heart pounding, sweating with fear in the middle of the night.
There was no rationale to this fear. I had done nothing wrong, I didn’t plan on doing anything wrong. I was a good boy! I was an upright member of the community, a Company Director, a Sea Scout leader, an active member of my chosen political party, a school governor.
So I loved my children with all my heart. I took them to every activity imaginable, I made things happen, I played with them in the garden, knew their friends, took them on holiday, played pranks and tricks, got them a dog, took them camping in north Wales in the rain, spending hours sitting around the small campfire cooking whatever was to hand and telling them stories.
I tried to spend every precious spare moment with them, eager to get home to them after short periods away with work. I wanted them to know the security of a love that didn’t end, that wouldn’t be ripped away from them, that wasn’t conditional on them being or doing anything. Love for love’s sake. So easily lost. The greatest treasure of all. And my reward for all this… Grandchildren.
They gave me 6 wonderful grandchildren to love and play pranks and tricks with, to go rock pooling on the beach, to lie on the trampoline in the middle of the night looking at the meteor showers with. To love unconditionally and without the fear of going to prison, but locked in love anyway!
