My Dad is the best!

My most vivid early memories of my dad are when I was about 4 or 5. My dad was the one that got involved in playing cricket outside with us and all the neighbourhood children. He would play football or if he wasn't playing it it was always my dad that we went to when the ball had gone in a neighbours garden once too often.

As we were growing up and my mum worked nights my dad would finish work at Saturday dinner time and make us chips in a bag - just like they did in the chippy back then, wrapped in newspaper but he would put tissue in the newspaper first.
It was mainly my dad that played games with me and taught me to play cards.

When I got a little older I remember him making sledge for me and my sister and taking us sledging - It had metal runners and a wooden top with carpet covering the top so we wouldn't get splinters. He would take us to the nearby woods and either I would sit in front of him and he would steer it or sometimes he would lie down on it and I would sit on his back and hold on to him. I wasn't old enough to go down the hill myself as it had to be steered away from the river.

My dad made me and my sister wooden stilts mine were a small pair just right for my height and my sisters were taller. All our friends loved having a go on these.
My dad became known as Joe'll fix it and all the children on the street would knock on our door for things like the chain had come off their bike and asking my dad to fix it. These children had a dad but came to mine.

When I was about 11 I remember my dad was going for a run on 'tongue field', my friends and I wanted to go to play rounders and couldn't go alone so as my dad was going he let us all go along and he would run around the track while we played. But we would beg him to join in with us instead, so he would bowl a few balls if we then let him have his run but instead most of the children decided to run round the track with him (gawd we must have been right pains).

My dad grew up with 7 sisters (he had a brother that died age 3) he then went on to have daughters so I suppose he was used to women being around. When he was young times were hard his dad died and left his mum to bring up 8 children. There was no welfare state or free money then. My gran married again and her husband died. So my dad and his sisters were left to fend for themselves as my gran had to go and work to put food on the table. She had a good boss who used to let her pop home at dinner time to get the childrens dinners ready.

My gran once told me a story about my dad having homing pigeons, he later sold them and told the man not to let them out for 3 weeks so they could get used to their new home. The man let them out and they flew back to my dads so they got killed and my gran cooked them for tea. UGH!

My dad was a bit of a delinquent in his youth but it wasn't like being a delinquent now he did what he did to survived but my mum told me he said he would have probably ended up in Borstal if it wasn't for a certain priest.
Having said this when we were young and went visiting friends he took us scrumping; me my sister and the 2 children where we were visiting. He told us to wear coats with lots of pockets to put the apples. He even had the cheek to let on to the farmer with a 'Afternoon farmer'. We would then take the apples back and my mum and dads friends would make apple pie but my mum always refused to eat it as she said it was wrong. Yeah it was but at the time it was good fun.

As I grew up my dad would give me and my friends a lift to the pub most weekends he never minded because that way we we didn't have to pay for a taxi.

When I had my first child it was my dad that was going to look after them when I went back to work.

There is so much more I could say about my dad but it would be never ending he taught me so much and is still good with his opinion. He's great and I love him.