Dad – Bernard – was born in Cambridge in 1930. His parents, Amy and Harry ran a lodging house for undergraduates at Clare College Cambridge. It was a gloomy old building which at one time had been a convent. Some of my earliest memories are of going to stay there with Nanny and Grandpa. Dad had plenty of stories about growing up there during the war – like the time he came home in the dark and stepped on what he thought was a dead body in the driveway. It turned out to be one of the undergraduates who had a bit too much to drink.
Dad was full of stories and jokes. Everyone who knew him always remarked on his sense of humour. Some of his tricks backfired though. Shortly after he married mum, who came from Finland, they were living in a small room in Bedford. There was a large wardrobe in the room. Dad decided to hide in there and jump out at mum when she opened the door. She almost left him then and there to return to Finland.  Years later when I was a teenager, he did the same thing to me by jumping out of the coat cupboard. It was typical of his sense of humour. Mum must have forgiven him as they were married for more than 60 years and celebrated their diamond anniversary a few years ago which is an amazing achievement.
When dad got a job in Fleet Street at the Daily Telegraph, we were living in Derby. Mum had just had Nick and I was 5. Dad was tasked with finding a suitable property for us to live in. He found a small flat in Richmond close to the station, which was his main criteria.  Less of a concern was whether it was actually suitable for a family with young children. Which it clearly wasn’t as it had no garden and was full of cockroaches. As soon as we were able we moved to our own new build house in Black Horse Close in Windsor which seemed like a palace in comparison!
Dad had a lifelong love of music. As a child in Cambridge he was a choir boy at Trinity College and later became head chorister. He also played the piano although not very often as there wasn’t one at home. I remember him playing boogie woogie style at his sister Barbara‘s house in Frome, Somerset when we used to go to stay.  He was always singing and whistling around the house and especially in the car where we learned all the old songs that he loved so much – songs like Stranger in Paradise and Strangers in the Night.
He also loved sport. Watching it mainly; he loved all sport including rugby which he played as a young man, snooker, athletics – any sport really but especially golf. Golf was the big love of his life outside work and family. He had always played and when the new golf club opened in Wexham near Slough, he was the first to sign up. He was part of a group called the early birds – some of them are here today. They were called that because they always set off very early on a Saturday morning to play. Once he retired, he could of course play more often, and he became captain of the golf club in 2001 – one of his proudest moments.
One abiding memory of dad at home was his love of the news. If we were messing about as kids, he would always tell us to be quiet when the news came on tv. I think he was one of those rare people who really loved his job – not so much when he was a junior reporter sent to find out about a cat stuck in a tree or to cover the local court cases, but once he moved to Fleet Street. He felt lucky to be in Fleet Street at that time. Although he got trained on computers and did move with the Telegraph to Canary Wharf towards the end of his career, he always said it wasn’t really the same as Fleet Street in its heyday.
Dad had met mum when he did his national service in Helsinki. As travel was expensive in those days, we didn’t get to go to Finland very often and if we did go, we would generally drive. It took us 3 days. When I was a child there were restrictions on the amount of money you could take abroad. There were no credit cards or even cash machines in those days. You had to take cash. Driving to Finland was relatively civilized as we would stay in motels. Driving home we would have to sleep in the car as dad would be running out of money. One time we broke down in Germany. He just had enough money left for us to either get a ferry from Hamburg to London – or – and this was my idea – to buy a VW Beetle to drive the rest of the way home. Needless to say, we got the ferry. Much to dad’s surprise, our car turned up a few weeks later on the back of a lorry.
When we weren’t driving to Finland our summer holidays were spent in Auntie Barbara’s caravan in Swanage, Dorset and the beach hut in Studland. I loved that beach hut so much – today it would be worth many thousands of pounds I’m sure, but back then we loved it for its direct access to the beach and our ability to make a cup of tea inside. I’m sure cousins Peter and Pat have fond memories of it too.
One grand holiday we had when I was 17, was 3 weeks in the South of France in a villa. This came about because dad had been commissioned to write a book about Princess Anne who at the time had become European Champion at 3 day eventing, a horse riding competition. With the proceeds from the book, we had the best time in Provence. My friend Jackie came out as well, allegedly because she was studying A Level French but really it was to party on the beach.
I think its fair to say that dad was not much of a cook. I remember one time he had to cook as mum was away. He loved to put salt on his vegetables but this time he put so much salt in the cooking water that even he couldn’t eat the end result and we had to go out for fish and chips. He did love BBQing though and we spent many a sunny Sunday in the garden in Wolf Lane eating sausages and burgers – which he was good at.
There are so many stories that I could relate but the abiding memory is of a very kind and generous man who loved his family and friends, and we his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are all so sad that he is no longer in our lives, but happy to know that he and mum are together again.