I like my buckle on the right.....

"I like my buckle on the right" he said.  I was changing his favourite belt from the stained beige trousers to the washed navy blue ones and although Dad was slumped on the edge of the bed trying to gain his breath, he was still keenly aware of my help. I did as I was told. Then waited until it was time to put on his knee bandage and socks. Waited again for him to gain his breath enough to proceed with his underpants and shirt. Sat quietly next to him on the bed, my hand on his shoulder, until the time for trousers and pullover came. Finally, I stood and extended my arm to lift Dad to his slippered feet and re-seat him on his wheeled walking frame. I unplugged his portable 'breather' and placed it on his lap as we wheeled across the hallway to the 'TV room' where, fully dressed Dad sat, as he likes to sit, in the sofa to watch the news. 

I plugged in his breather to the mains power, checked the oxygen feed setting at '4' (which used to be '2' then later '3') then went off to the kitchen to make his first cup of tea and take his tablets out of the fridge. Seven and a half tablets meticulously counted out daily, to be taken with Dad's morning 'cuppa'. 

Back to Dad, and within minutes I'm told that the Aussie Dollar is still sitting at ninety four cents, and that Stockland shares are looking good. I take comfort from this as I know while ever Dad lives and breathes, my work with a fabric importer/wholesaler and my daughter's work with a major real estate company will give interest to a long since retired 'Captain of Industry' who is still vitally interested in such things.

Time for breakfast, alternating daily between bacon and egg, and toast and marmalade. This has been Dad's breakfast diet since mum died in 1993. Back then at her mothering/wifely best, she told him that "bacon and egg every day is not good for your cholesterol". So toast and marmalade has been Dad's second daily option for the twenty one years since. 

I am Dad's younger son, four years my brother's junior. Dad once said "You know when you're getting really old when you wake up one morning and realize that you have a fat, balding, 62 year old for a younger son!"

His humour, though diminished by physical pain, still runs deep in our father. Yet not so deep that I can be flippant with him in his current state. At 94 years old and in the advanced stages of Pulmonary Fibrosis, he suffers a condition that progressively and aggressively reduces his ability to breath. Every move is followed by a struggle for air and the querulous look that I see in his eyes as he gasps for each next breath. Compounding this problem for him is the fact that his left knee, injured playing hockey in 1942 and now, (after surgical cartilage removal back in 1956 when it was thought wise to do so), without any cushioning, has been painfully grinding, daily, bone on bone, at fifteen degrees from the perpendicular, making any attempt at walking extremely laboured. Nevertheless, he perserveres and drinks his tea daily from a cup that says "Never, never, never give up" echoing the words of Churchill that he remembers so well.

After breakfast we quite often 'chat'. I have since confessed to Dad that I have been recording some of our conversations. Quite simply because I don't want to lose the history that is his life.  I am reminded that "Those who choose to ignore the past are condemned to repeat it". 

During the war of 1939/45 at the age of 21 he took over the aluminium analysis laboratory at the Alcan Adderbury works in the heart of England. Passed as fit for sevice in the RAF, Dad was subsequently prevented from leaving his vital industry position. A young woman by the name of Jean Horton subsequently came to work there too, as a laboratory assistant, and although initially she may have described Dad as a misogynist, she treated him as a challenge to be converted! They married on the third of June 1944.

However, in the summer and autumn of 1940 when the Battle of Britain raged, it was a daily event for them to witness semi trailer low loader trucks depositing German and British aircraft wreckage in the fields surrounding the aluminium factory. Dad's role was to supervise the breakdown of these wrecks, analyze their metal content and arrange re-smelting to create new aluminium sheet for British aircraft production 

Then later, at the peak of the North African campaign in 1942 when the odds seemed hopelessly against the Allied forces, Dad remembers a late nightshift in the laboratory when the old night watchman Perce Manning stopped and asked in his lovely middle country accent. "How're you doing my boy?"  Dad remembers saying, " Oh I don't know Perce, this business with Rommel isn't looking too good is it?" And with no possible understanding of the conflict details, but with a simple conviction, Perce responded with "Don't you worry, my boy. We shall 'ave the buggers!"

As it turned out, the German tank battalions under the brilliant Erwin Rommel were convincingly defeated by the British General Montgomery at the Battle of El Alamein. 

I have heard this story many times and with it, Dad has often quoted Churchill whenever, as a family, we have faced adversity and subsequently prevailed. 

"We have a victory - a remarkable and definite victory. The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers and warmed and cheered all our hearts." 

In one of our recorded 'chats' Dad described the period immediately after the war when, newly married to Jean and with my brother Andrew born in April 1947 they struggled to build their new life together.

"It was 1946, that's right, and the bigger bits (of the large Cherry tree outside the house) I did that with a hand saw. And I cut these logs lying all around and I said there'll be enough wood there to last us for bloody years. Well there was in 46/47 a severe snow, it lasted from about November right through to the end of March. By the time I used to come home at night, put on my old Home Guard uniform, oh we hadn't got any electricity at the time, no we had got (electricity), but we mainly relied on a coal fire, I used to saw away for about a couple of hours, enough wood for the following day.  And by the time Spring came round I'd virtually sawn up the whole bloody lot. But in this old cottage it was the only way of keeping the place... Well, Jean was pregnant between 46 until April the 4th (1947) it was a question of keeping the house warm for her." 

I was born in December 1951 and named simply because my brother Andrew had been playing cricket alone with a fictitious bowler named 'John' for some time. It was a fore-gone conclusion that I was to be 'John'. I am happy to say that we are still close as two brothers and now share in the decision making for Dad's future care needs. 

By 1958 Australia had been heavily promoting an increased immigration policy which was based on the doctrine of 'Populate or Perish'. During the war the country had come perilously close to being over-run by the Japanese who had taken the British stronghold of Singapore, bombed Australia's cities of Darwin and Townsville, torpedoed ships in Sydney Harbour, and were only finally turned back militarily on the Kokoda trail in New Guinea and at the Battle of Midway. As a result the Australian Government encouraged migrants to build a new life for a modest cost of 10 pounds per person over 15 years of age. Dad had decided (correctly as it later evolved) that a secure future did not lie in an aluminium industry that had been so heavily dependent on war. And too, because he lacked the formal university qualifications that more recent recruits could present. So in May 1958, we left England for Australia as 'Ten Pound Poms'. 

All migrants worked hard to create a new life wherever they landed in Australia. We arrived in 'Elizabeth' a satellite City 18 miles from Adelaide that was founded in 1954 to celebrate the new Queens coronation. Mum and Dad joined 'Progress Committees' to develop the local neighbourhood. Fund raising events were common.

I remember on one occasion of the annual Elizabeth Birthday celebrations, Dad worked on a lucky dip stand and there were a variety of different shaped boxes on the stand at two shillings each. You could choose any box you liked for the same price. And of course me, being a greedy little urchin, chose the biggest box on the stand that I could see. Had I realized at the time that "Great things come in small packages" I would have selected the smallest box which contained a watch. The big box that I chose contained a brick!  I think that was one of my early life lessons.

Now in 2014, I sit in the TV room next to my dear Dad who drops in and out of sleep as the evening progresses. I try, during the day to 'chivvy' him up a bit with much optimistic talk about the days, weeks and months ahead. But his body aches constantly, his breathing fills him with anxiety and despite all his past stoicism in periods of crisis, he fixes me in the eyes and says " Look mate, you might know a lot about fabrics and stuff, but you don't know a lot about being 94.833 recurring."

He is of course correct. But I do know what Andy and I have learned from all the past examples of our parents lives. 

Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” 

Tomorrow morning when I help Dad get dressed for another day, and then for all future mornings, I too shall make sure my buckle is on the right! 

John Mackinnon  - 18/4/14

Postscript:- 

2/9/13 - 5.44 pm - 1minute 42 seconds - Dad explains the 'Faux Pas'

... And the young bloke said, "Mr Jones" he said, "these folks don't half use some funny words" he said , "What's this 'faux pas' they talk about?" He said "Ah" he said, "well", he said "The more 'iggerant' people", he said "Call it a 'foxes paw'. "But", he said, "The best thing I can do is to give you an example". He said, "Do you remember when her ladyship entertained guests the other weekend?" He said "yeh". He said "Do you remember one of them was a bishop?" He said "yeh I remember him, the little bloke with the gaiters." He said "That's him". He said "Now, do you remember her ladyship was showing the bishop round her rose garden and he caught his finger on a thorn and that, and it bled a little bit?" He said "Yeh I remember that, we had to find an elastoplast to put over it." He said "Now, you remember when were going to serve dinner at night" he said "I was carrying the roast and you were carrying behind with the potatoes, the taters." He said "yeh, I remember that", he said  "Well you remember as we approached the table, her ladyship said to the bishop, "Is your prick still hurting?" He said, " I remember that". He said "I coughed and you dropped the potatoes" he said " You dropping the taters was a faux pas!"