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Chapter 7 - page 3

1964 - Claude

And now to be thoroughly confusing I am going to revert to my father’s real name of Claude, not that he would have approved but because he was leaving the past behind him, now the most influential if not important person in his life was undoubtedly my cousin Barbara.   Claude had never listened to his sister’s advice but his niece Barbara was a different kettle of fish, she was not accustomed to standing nonsense from the children she taught and neither was she going to put up with it from her uncle.   And Barbara, like her mother always called dad Claude.

The owner of ‘Mayfield’ also owned many other properties in the Highfield district of Southampton.   In point of fact he had only kept ‘Mayfield’ as it was out of respect for my father who had been a tenant for twenty years and I think it could be said was now a friend.   Also in his property portfolio was a small rather attractive block of flats on the corner of Brookvale Road and Hill lane opposite Highfield church.   Number 101 was a ground floor flat ideal for father, very cosy and warm, it had central heating!

I will not go into the gory details of my Master’s examination, that is part of my story but it must have been a huge relief to Claude that I had at least got over that hurdle.

My father very rarely expresses emotion in his diary, we may have caught a sight of it when on the day Neil, my son was born he says ‘nice drive’.   I cannot recall him ever being an emotional man other than with a very quick temper so this is a rare entry for in it we get just a glimpse of what he felt that day.

                  
This very terse entry covers up dad’s distress at seeing me go.   During the past few years we had built up a relationship that had been completely lacking in my younger days, we were not only father and son but very good friends.   Claude makes no mention of the fact that he drove me to Heathrow and watched me walk out to the aircraft.   Another small clue to what was now a very strong family bond, my sister would have known of his distress so made sure she ’phoned in the evening.

1965

Claude passes no comment but this rather ‘Boys Own’ theft by the ship’s carpenters must have been for dad very upsetting, it was after all his beloved mail service being let down!

For Claude 1965 was the start of the downward slope.   His health began a steady decline, to make matters worse the weather that year was bad.   The news that year to was depressingly bad reflected in his diary with entries such as ‘run on gold’, pound under pressure’.   But more seriously for Claude was the decline in his friend Mr. Dunn’s health, now dad took over as his and his wife’s chauffer taking them shopping and for outings, Mr. Dunn being unable to drive.

1966

Claude opens his diary for 1966 by summing up 1965 as an ‘end of a bad year’ and on his health with the sad questioning comment ‘my last?’   But 1966 was to be much worse.

I recall receiving dad’s telegram telling me the news, at the time I did not appreciate his dreadful sense of loss, I do now for having lost my own sister I know only too well that empty void, all those things you wished you had told her.   Whilst it was a terrible loss for me to Claude it must have seemed the end of his world.

Barbara faced a difficult choice, she was now living with Claude having taken a teaching post in Southampton, but with the death of her mother there seemed little to keep her in England; Claude was not an easy person to be with and she could see her life slipping away.
As the year wore on the diary entries show an increasing depression such as ‘Barbara lost us forever’, but worse was to come.   An event which affected Claude deeply was the Aberistwith disaster, a coal mine slag heap became unstable, it slid into the village engulfing the school, two hundred children lost their lives.   Dad ended the year with the comment ‘the end of a bad year’.