My Dad

I have just realised it is father's day. I knew it already, but I just realised it and thought that I would write down some stuff about my Dad. Bernard Francis Gibbon.

Age about 12 in the garden at 81 Redland Stret

He was born in 1914, the fourth child of Frederic Gibbon and Margaret Annie Guilfoyle. He told me that when he was three he was knocked down by a tram on Malpas Road and was caught under the cow-catcher on the front. He didn't really remember his mother because she died when he was four and a half. He remembered sitting on a bed that had a woman in it. His big sister was there and his two brothers. He remembered a window in a high stone wall and Fred saying, "Our Mam is dead and she's in there on a slab." He remembered being at a grave with flowers on it. He grew up with Ma taking his mother's place and he always told me that she treated them all the same. It didn't matter if you were her step-children or her children if she took the boiler-stick to one she would use it on all. If she threw the carving knife at one you knew she would equally throw it at any of the others.

Sitting at my piano - obviously outside
 a few glasses of whiskey

 He left home after she did exactly that, she threw the carving knife at him and it stuck in the door next to his head so he decided that the time had come to leave. He moved into the flat in Clytha Square where Steve was living with two mates. He said he didn't last long there because they were pigs and never cleaned up or washed a dish and he was doing it all. They also never bought food but if Dad bought any they would eat it. He joined the Army by mistake around this time, that's a whole story on it's own so that'll be another blog.
Steve was in the Merchant Navy so he stayed with Muriel when he was ashore.
I thought I had told the tale of how he met my mother but I see that this is in a back issue of the Gazette. I'll tell it another time.

Most of you know that Dad lost his right leg at the end of WW2 and spent the rest of his life proving that he was just as good as any man. What he actually showed was that he would have been impossible to live with if he had two legs because Mum and I spent our whole lives trying to keep up.

He built the Nissen hut so that we had somewhere to live and then ten years later he built the bungalow in front of it so that we had a proper house to spend the rest of our lives. Then WIMPEY built a whole estate of houses in the fields next to us so Dad sold the bungalow and bought Llandowlais Farm. It had no electricity, no running water and no drains but that was no problem. We lived upstairs in the bedrooms using bottled gas for cooking and lights and until the water was brought into the house we made do with carrying it from the cold tap in the yard.

Then there was a brief stay at a post office on Cardiff Road - he often said it was the worst mistake of his life but from there he bought Rhiwlas Mill and we spent a very happy nine years there before my marriage fell apart and Dad could not accept this.
We fell out over it because he told me I just wasn't trying hard enough.
After I met Colin things got worse because Dad was convinced that Colin was after my money! I moved out and even though my mother was hoping to live in the Mill until she died Dad decided to sell it and spend the money on himself so that Colin wouldn't get it.

Ironic then that it was Colin that suggested they should come live with us after Mum had the stroke. That it was Colin that got up in the night to lift Mum back into bed when she fell out. Colin that drove them wherever they wanted to go.

But that's my Dad. Eventually they had to go to a nursing home because I didn't have the strength to lift Mum on my own and if she was going to a nursing home then he was going with her.
He was the Bravest, stubbornest, idiosyncratic man I ever knew. I loved him for being my Dad and I hated him for being that also. I miss him every day since he died in 2003, but I am glad I don't have to put up with him. I feel guilty for them having to go into the home but I know it would have put me in a strait-jacket to have continued caring for them.
Just for today I can remember all his good points and I can say Thank you Dad, I love you