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Chapter 7 - page 2

I will cover the last ten years of father’s life using extracts from his diary.

1961                   

Relations between Pen and dad had improved to the point where she with Sarah would visit and stay over for a few days with him.   Barbara who was also often staying with dad has told me that these visits were nerve wracking in the extreme; dad could not understand why his normal routine should be upset because of a small child.   Sarah would become tired and difficult, tempers would fly and Pen with Barbara would take Sarah out for marathon walks just to keep clear of dad.   But he insisted upon asking Penny to stay despite the fireworks, they were not particularly happy times for anyone.

Father was not amused!   When home it had almost become a daily catechism, his warnings at the perils of marriage before a Master’s certificate.   I had to admit the sound sense in this, in those days the path to the labour exchange was carpeted by officers who had married and left the sea before getting their Master’s certificate.   Of those that stayed they became almost permanent fixtures in the examination centres, only the benevolence of a certain Marine Superintendent who kept them on staff duties between them and starvation.

Gladys and Barbara must have come up to Southampton for Christmas.   Of course Penny would ’phone, for her entire life no matter how harshly my father treated her Penny’s love for him.   Looking back this entry says it all about Barbara, a very attractive young girl who should have been with other young people, but she never complained.

1962

No other comment, the only warning dad had received was my telegram sent the day before.

Father was staying with Glad and Barbara whilst his cousin Mary and family were also staying with family in Barnstaple.   I would love to have been a fly on the wall for this visit, to this day Barbara never so much as speaks of that side of our family.   However Mary and my father were very fond of each other whilst I would soon have a lot to thank Victoria for.

In these terse entries dad records what for him must have been very stressful weeks, firstly to find his son married to a girl he knows nothing about, then to be told she is coming over to England to meet him.     My father rose to the occasion, very much more worldly wise than I he knew precisely the difficulty I would find in looking for somewhere to set up home.   With limited finance, in fact no finance at all to rent a flat would be next to impossible.   I arrived back in England just ten days ahead of Lynette, I hardly knew where to start looking, my pathetic efforts are too embarrassing to write about!   Dad however was quietly on top of the situation, the Sunday before Lyn was due to arrive he told me to go in the morning to the estate agent through whom he rented ‘Mayfield’, whilst I had been wondering around uselessly dad had quietly got on with the job of finding us a furnished flat at a rent we could afford.

Lynette had won dad over, from the moment they first met at ‘Mayfield’ father took her over as one of the family.   He knew at once that she was expecting our first child, dad took her to town for maternity clothes, a subject I knew nothing about.   He even accepted Major, the flatcoat retriever puppy Lyn had insisted I go and fetch on Easter Monday, finally when I had to go to Hedly Court insisting upon Lynette moving to ‘Mayfield’ where he could look after her.   Geff pleaded with her to stay in England but for once he had met his match, he was as upset as I seeing her off.

It was in the days when your doctor also became a family friend, Dr. Cann had been looking after dad for years, he had known Mr. Richardson the surgeon from before the war so despite the risks he had complete confidence in them.   He came through the operation with flying colours, spent three weeks in a nursing home recuperating before returning to ‘Mayfield’ by which time I had gone back to sea.  

You notice my father’s order of priorities, not Lynette’s son, she just happened to be necessary, but his son, neither does Geff ever refer to either Penelope’s or my children as grandchildren.   But when all is said and done it was a ‘nice drive’.

1963

I love this entry, it is so typical of my father.   The day had dawned with widespread snow threatened for the west of England, but dad was driving home because on Friday I was arriving home!   The drive to Salisbury (no motorways then only narrow country roads) became more and more difficult, father in his faithful Morris Minor pressed on, he passed stranded cars but it never occurred to father what would happen if he too became stranded in a snow drift.   I am writing of a time when the motorist had only the few and far between A.A. or R.A.C. telephone box between them and complete isolation if you broke down on the road, the mobile ’phone was a long way off from being invented.   At last dad arrived at Salisbury where he had a meal at the White Hart, still one of the city’s more attractive old ‘post’ hotels.   He then went to the A.A. office to enquire into the conditions of the road to Southampton, he was told that the road was only just passable but advised against attempting the journey, also that the road from Devon had been closed all day.   Geff was then asked from where he had come, when he told them Barnstaple the A.A. man said “Oh well then sir, carry on you’ll not have any difficulty but for other drivers I would not advise it!”

Since her marriage Pen and her husband Jerome had moved a number of times, to Basingstoke, then Countesthorp  in Leicestershire, a caravan not far from Windscale nuclear plant, and finally to Dublin.   Jerome had been made sales manager for an Irish company making jams.

Not tired, Geff must have felt utterly depressed and forlorn, South Africa had left the Commonwealth, Geff realised it would mean the end of his beloved mail fleet.

Another nice example of my father’s order of priorities, after spending billions the Americans had at last equalled the Russians - but for Geff the important event of the day was Pen’s ’phone call.

                 
It was an awful day!  Cold and grey with dad as usual insisting everyone was enjoying themselves playing on the cold damp sand.   But who am I to talk, I then took my three year old niece for a fun ride in the docks to sea the ships!

I expect dad always went down to watch my ship sail from Southampton, but it must have been with mixed feelings seeing me on a ship he had so strongly advised against building.

It may have made him feel old but it was nothing short of a miracle Geff reaching the age of 65.

Pen and the children must have come over from Dublin, I was off to make a voyage as 2nd mate of the ‘Rochester Castle’ commanded by Ronny Wright.   Quite what he had done to displease the Company I am not sure but I had caught the chief cook of the ‘Transvaal’ stealing chickens in Cape Town.   (see O.G. Keen)

The Honourable Company of Master Mariners, a City Livery Company of which dad was a member had its ‘hall’ on an old ‘Flower’ class corvette moored on the Thames embankment, about three times a year they held a luncheon on board for members and a guest. (see O.G. Keen)

For a long while now the family (Pen, Glad and Barbara) had been trying to get father to look for a smaller flat, ‘Mayfield’ was a great barn of a place, draughty and by now very old fashioned.   Without heating and an antiquated hot water system it was very cold in winter and expensive to keep heated.   But dad was most reluctant to leave the past behind, finally Barbara took the bull by the horns and, using her best school room discipline tactics persuaded Geff to move.