Day 294

Me (aged 14 months) and my Dad (aged 37).

My dad died 3 years ago today, and although I wasn't at the funeral, I had been to visit him before he died, just as I had with my mother almost 2 years earlier.  I wrote their eulogies, and that was my part in each memorial service.   I thought of putting an excerpt here, but then couldn't choose, so I have included the entire piece.  He was an amazing dad.

A Eulogy in honour of Jack Radford, written by Anne Bouwer, younger daughter

John Andrew Radford was born at the end of the First World War on a farm in Essex, England.  He grew up a strong healthy boy, the champion of his two younger sisters.  He learnt much about animal husbandry from his father, the head stockman, Arthur Radford, from whom he also inherited his green thumb.  Dad could grow absolutely anything, the apple tree he grew and grafted outside no. 10 Lawrence Village, which produces 6 different varieties of apples, being a testament to this talent. 

His mother, Alice Emily, affectionately known as “Em”, was a governess who taught him good manners and the importance of educating yourself throughout your life, which he did, even though he had to leave school at the age of 14 to earn money for the family. 

He had, together with his wife Joan, 3 children, 10 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren.

My dad’s great heart gave in, a month short of the grand old age of 89, in October 2007, just 20 months after his beloved wife of 64 years. 

For the last 52 years of his life I was privileged to know him as my father.   

My father signed up for the RAF just before the beginning of the Second World War and that is where he acquired the nickname “Jack”.  After contracting cerebro-spinal meningitis which nearly killed him, he had to give up his dream of becoming a fighter pilot and was sent on a fitter’s course instead.  We always said it was lucky for us because it  probably saved his life.  In the famed 92 Squadron at Biggin Hill he was in charge of a team of men fixing and outfitting Spitfires.

Even though he was spared the thick of the fighting Dad had a lot of first-hand experience of being under constant attack during the Battle of Britain.  During one bombing, after many previous hours spent bored and cold standing in the leaky air-raid shelters, sometimes in 4 inches of water, Jack decided that he was staying in his warm bed in the billet. They had banked the stove till it was roaring and red-hot and had hot cocoa and bread which they were about to eat.  He stubbornly refused to join his friends in the chilly air-raid shelter.  Hearing the crunch as each bomb exploded on the airfield, he slid under the iron bedstead just as one fell really close by.  When the all-clear sounded he jumped back into his bed, where he was lying, warm and happy, when the rest of his mates came in, cold and grumpy.  The next morning they discovered a hole in the wooden billet 12 inches above his head, so he really had been lucky! 

My father was sent to the air station at Wingfield in Cape Town, where he met and married the love of his life, Joan Webster, a WAF, falling in love with her radiant smile, across the proverbial crowded room, as he always loved to tell us.  Their first child, Brenda, the apple of her father’s eye, was born just before they were posted to no. 45 Air School in Oudtshoorn, where they were happy to spend the rest of the war years.

The main thing I know about my father is how much energy he had!  He trained as an electrician, worked as one for about 16 years and then decided to train as an Air-conditioning and refrigeration engineer. He became much sought after as a trouble-shooter, a true engineer, having the knack of looking at the engine or motor or whatever it was as a whole and then being able to fashion the new part it needed from something he more than likely produced from his pocket!  The contents of his pockets were legendary in our family.  Once he gave his bulging jacket to one of his small granddaughters to hold for him and she nearly fell over from the weight of it!  Often working two or more jobs to make ends meet, he always found time to spend with each of his children.  When Brenda, Tim and I were together during the first week of September this year, reminiscing, we each could remember numerous amazing times with my dad, where we alone were the focus of all his attention and delight.  By the age of four I could read fluently, having been taught by my dad, so effortlessly, that when an elderly neighbour asked me, “And who taught you to read so well?” I replied, “I was born like that,” because that is how it felt.  I hadn’t even known that I was learning something wondrous, one of his best enduring gifts to me.

In addition to his day job as an air-conditioning and refrigeration engineer at Centurator Products, he taught night-school at the Cape Technical College for more than 20 years, with numerous success-stories coming back to him from his grateful students.  As one of his young grandsons remarked, “He loved teaching you things, even when you didn’t really want to be taught.”

My father loved to travel with my mother and they saved for an overseas trip every few years, visiting many countries.  My dad fearlessly traveled all the way to America three times in his eighties.  Last year, arriving at London’s Heathrow airport, where Tim was waiting for him, he forgot that he was supposed to wait for the wheelchair and marched purposefully out of the gate, excitedly greeting his own dear son, minus his unremembered luggage. 

My father was a steadfast friend.  He sustained friendships with people he met as a young man and was loyal and supportive to the end.  We remember Jack Nielsen who my dad visited for many days through his long battle with cancer.  Also Wally Burch from his RAF days, the best man at his wedding, a beloved friend for life.  Dad was also a good and loyal friend to Porti Vikos, our cousin Carol’s husband. He spent many pleasant hours with him in Porti’s wood-carving workshop and loved the kind attention he got from Porti and Carol in his last few years.  Even in these last few weeks, when he didn’t really have any idea where he was most of the time, friends still visited him, and for these people my heart is full of gratitude and appreciation:  Doctor Hudson, Joyce Gardiner, Fred Sterry, and my parents’ dear friends, Wilfrid and Jean Chetwin. 

From so far away, we have appreciated so much the kind attention given and sacrifices made by Brenda and her extended family to help Dad over the past few years.  My sister has been a devoted daughter to her aging father, coming through all the ups and downs with shining, flying colours.

I am so proud of my father.  He was at times a difficult, sometimes cantankerous, character, particularly in his latter years, but with such a good heart, the best heart, really. He did his best at everything in his life, achieving an enormous amount with little education.  He was a self-made man.  My dad was bold and brave always.  He was our safe haven, constant and steadfast. 

He was a big strong man (Brenda always compared him to a powerful Shire horse) and handsome.  He had huge hands, the largest hands I’ve ever seen. I remember as a small girl, literally flying across Adderly street on the foreshore one strong south-easterly day, my little hand (and half of my arm) firmly in his huge hand, my body horizontal, parallel to the ground, such fun, utterly safe!

I always believed that he could fix anything, from a bird with a broken wing to a car engine.  Just a few months’ ago I was talking to him over the telephone, describing two tall white pines which we have to have taken down because they are old and could threaten the house.  My dad was full of suggestions on how we could do it, how he would climb the ladder, which branch we should cut down first etc., next time he came out to America.  He was so gung-ho, believing in his abilities to do anything, that I could almost imagine it really happening, this 88 year old man cutting down a 150 ft tree!

He loved his children with a fierce and doting love and thought we were the best children who had ever lived!  And after all, what more could you wish for from a dad? 

His grandchildren, commiserating their loss on emails to one another, all mentioned how much they loved and respected him,, and how he had influenced their choices in life, how he had taught them to be good people.

Dad doing what he loved best - note the huge hands

When my brother and I were there in September we had a morning visit with him where he, for brief moments, escaped the confusion that had crept up on him in recent years.  I have chosen to remember him like that, when, knowing exactly where he was and why he was there, appreciating the Spring sunshine on the creeper-covered wall and the little scudding clouds in the bright blue sky, he looked into our eyes, his own those twinkling light light blue eyes, and said, “It’s good to be alive.” 

This is his legacy to us, that positive and abiding life-force that gets us up every morning, freshly washed and sparkling, ready for the new day, ready to do our best.

Dad in his RAF uniform, when my mother had just met him.