My Father Died earlier this Morning – CYA Dad

I received a couple of emails this morning from my sister Helen. Dad died 2.10am. Peacefully thank goodness. I think 95 years is a decent run at things and it was earlier this week I thought I would call him again and tell he was sure to make the ton. Not so, it seems.

Dad was born in New Zealand at the tail end of the depression, 30 June 1929, to be precise and was brought up as a child scabbing everything and anything.

He was a trained watchmaker and bought the company that he did his apprenticeship with (E R Warburton & Co Ltd) from old man Warbie and then from his widow. He sold it when he retired just prior to the crash, so missing the war and missing the first down turn he seemed to have a pretty charmed life.

He married Mum (Shirley) sired myself and a couple of my sisters, Helen and Judith, and engaged Laurence Woods as a long-term employee. They all pretty much played the game – his. Only I tended to push back. Both Mum and Laurence worked out that it was better to just do what he wanted, rather than to argue with him. Dad always seemed to win, no matter what, government departments were his pet ‘challenges’. I didn’t seem to give it two hoots.

Dad’s emotional age was stunted and seemed to me to be about 8-10 years old (around about when his parents split up). Dad had a strong sense of justice and fairness, always paid his bills on time and always did the honourable thing, except to his own father I think because he blamed him for the bust up of his parents, siding with his mother.

I once made comment to him that he “wasn’t a God man” or something like that to which he retorted that God was too big to measure and not to assume where he was on that scale.

OK Dad. No assumptions!

Dad’s legacy has found its outworking in grandchildren galore – no doubt sister Helen will document them all one day!

CYA Dad, and thanks!