26th Jan 2002, 20 years ago today

26th Jan 2002 , 20 years ago today

was when my dad died

I screamed like a puppy dog being beat with an iron bar

for an hour

mum had died in the marriage bed 5.5 years before

despite my brother doing CPR

8 weeks later, he happened to be home

he heard dad fall out of bed in the next room

the same room

my brother saved dad with CPR

dad went on to live 5.5 years more

despite being given just a week to live

and us picking hymns for his funeral

You read more online somewhere

Padre Pio and Me maybe

I visited dad every single day for 3 years

and he lived a couple of years more

I got wed and we had a baby

now doing BioChem at University

another girl turned up  2 years later

after dad was buried

So what can I say

The Love, the Strength, the Hope

never stated but there like the Mountains in County Kerry

where my Blacksmith dad came from before Birmingham

they were always with me

Ave Maria happens to have kicked in on my Music selection

Dad was too busy working up to 16 hours day at

The District Iron and Steel Brasshouse Lane Smethwick

he'd do to a late Mass on Sundays

I could say oceans more

He actually had bought his Thomas Cook ticket for England

When his sister Mary in Chicago sent him money for America

So the tale goes

That's why I'm here and not in America

But he was like a brother to Mum's brother who did live in  Boston, USA

And me and Dad were more like brothers than father and son

because I spent most time talking to him, as I was the youngest son

And 5 of 6 was my place in the family

When  I wrote The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker

mum and  her 3 sisters was obviously Mrs Murphy with Julie Walters in my head too

if ever it were turned into a film

My dad I loved too much to put him in the book

But when I finished the book I realised that Big Sid the Butcher

the love inside him was really my dad, though Roy Kinnear was the

idea for any filmed version

But I only realised afterward that Big Sid was my dad

A pure and simple love,  though dad was very intelligent, not like the

character in the book

Casey one day you will hang said dad's teacher in the 1920s

Irony was the 4 of the 6 of use were teachers

So my dad is in me, and always will be

Because he made me