1951

‘I’ve never really understood families. Way back, I never saw much of my dad other than a fleeting figure in the mornings and Sunday evenings, if I was lucky. My mother used to tell me that he was working incredibly hard and that his time away from home was the price we all had to pay for high standard of living that we enjoyed. I confess that I never saw much evidence for that, but I was never so tactless as to mention it.

‘Even now I picture my mother as someone standing either over a stove or over a sink, sometimes gazing into the distance, sometimes singing quietly to herself. Her life seemed to be one long and continuous apology for everyone else.

‘Late one night - many year later, I have to admit – I was walking home through the dark and silent streets when I drew close to home and, lit only by the damp halo of a single street light on the corner, I saw my father sitting nearly motionless at the wheel of our car. Instinctively I stopped and watched him from a safe distance, but he still did not move. I grew worried for his safety and edged closer, but still could not detect any movement from him. Why was he there?

‘After a bit I walked right up to the car and gently opened the door. With a low groan he fell out and landed with his hands on the road, still strapped in. He was dead drunk and had driven home, but was incapable of getting out of his seatbelt.

    - I’m doing all this for you and your mother, you know.

‘I took these words to mean that he was drinking to excess because of us, which I didn’t understand for a second. Then I took it to mean that he was working hard for both of us and was giving up his life so that we may enjoy ours. Eventually it struck me that they were just the words of a drunken man trying to explain to his daughter why he was too inebriated to get out of a car that he habitually drove a few hundred yards to and from the pub – presumably every day - which I suppose explained his continual absence, my mother’s apologies and our living standards.’