When I was younger I lived in a chocolate box world with a hero for a father, a goddess for a mother and a beautiful younger sister who always reminds me as well a everyone else that she “got the looks” while I “got the brains”. I was never hungry, had lovely clothes and lots of toys. I do not remember wanting for anything in the true sense of the word.

In the early 1970s there were a few industrial disputes in the UK and I received an education from the media regarding these events. I remember I had written an essay at school outlining my opinion of the disputes and the mark I received could not have been less than a B (Good) or I would remember. The essay would probably have been lost in the mists of time if it had not been for the fact that it acted as the catalyst for the education I was to receive from my father.

My father had been ‘away’ for most of my earlier years, I remember his homecomings but not departures; he did not “do goodbyes”. When he was at home I remember laughter, parties, bedtime stories and adventures. After my essay we began to know each other a little better.

I remember that it was a Saturday morning when he came for me,
“I am going to take you somewhere. Put on some trousers (I was not allowed to wear ‘denims’), put on some sensible shoes and you will need your coat.”
With no further explanation we left and went on a magical mystery tour.

We did not live in these parts then although we would often visit family in the next town during the ‘holidays’. The first thing you notice on the journey here is that the landscape gradually changes as you get closer, the countryside is still beautiful but in a less subtle way. Not many lush fields with crops or brick houses, thatched roofs and wide blue rivers but rolling moors, heathers, light green fields with stone flagged walls, cold dark or sometimes ‘iron’ waters and the houses are mainly built with stone. It is a passionate landscape that I was unable to recognise as such in those days.

My father was a ‘serious person’ as am I, we also shared a very dry sense of humour. I could listen to my father telling stories of his adventures for hours. Together, we have sailed seas, shot down a Junkers 88, lived in jungles, climbed mountains and walked native Indian trails in America without even leaving home. All this was just the tip of his iceberg.

We did not speak much on the journey and eventually we arrived at the village I live in now. I remember walking up a steep cobbled hill to a small crop of houses and in the middle of them a much older house with its honey coloured stone weathered to a deeper shade than it would have been in his childhood. My father had lived in this small house when he had been a child.

As we stood there, my father spoke and I listened and this continued as we walked further up the hill to the moors, down into the Dell, back past the school and church and into one of the local pubs. There, on a settle, sat two elderly men with weather beaten faces and matching tartan ties. Two of my father’s uncles, exiled Scots who had never lived in Scotland but with an inherited passion and attachment for that country as deep as any who may have been born there. The pattern continued, they spoke and I listened.

I listened and laughed with them as they told tales of their childhood, relived their experiences of the First World War and the welcome of unemployment that was extended when they returned from fighting. I listened to how people went to bed hungry and heard how children were weighed at school to qualify for ‘free school dinners’. I learned how my father was not one of the lucky few who qualified and so, later he had to have both his legs broken and reset as he had suffered with rickets through lack of nourishment.

I heard how my father joined the Navy underage because he wanted to fight Hitler and that when he left home he had never intended to return because other pastures were so much greener.

I understood then why my father had created my chocolate box world and all the nourishment I had received because of the famine of his past. I had no idea that my father religiously read my exercise books, no idea at all. Once I had listened to as well as heard their stories I found myself in a better position to offer my opinion and I also discovered that not all lessons take place in the classroom.

Labels: Lesson Father Northern Life

Posted by Miladysa at 2:12 PM 13 Comments

This week both my youngest daughter and youngest grandson started school for the first time. Although I love my daughter dearly I am going to write about my youngest grandson in this post.

We noticed that something was wrong about seven weeks before his first birthday, his eye lids were swollen and his eyes were runny, he looked a bit pale and was not himself.

My daughter took him to the doctors on many, many occasions and was informed that he had hay fever and he was prescribed anti histamine. When the first course of medication did not make any difference another was prescribed.

I visited my daughter one night on my way home from work and did not like the look of my grandson; I had one of my feelings. I asked if I could take him to the doctors the next day and took the morning off work to do so. I had the doctor check him out thoroughly, I trusted the doctor. He told me that he suspected that it was indeed an allergy and he would prescribe something else to try. If this medication did not work we were to go back the following week. I felt reassured but still uneasy. It was a Thursday.

On the Saturday morning I visited my daughter again and when I saw my grandson I scooped him up in my arms and took him to A&E. That feeling was there, I knew something was really wrong. What did I know? That he had runny eyes and I had one of my feelings? We waited, he was happy to wait. After quite a long wait I approached one of the nurses and pleaded with her. I told her that I wanted to see a paediatrician immediately, that I knew that something was seriously wrong. I do not know what it was, maybe the desperation in my eyes, maybe she thought I was a nutter but I can never thank her enough because she said,

“Come with me”

and we went straight to the paediatrician. He did not dismiss us or think I was a nutter, he took me seriously and ran some blood tests straightaway.

To cut a very long story short we were transferred to a children’s cancer ward in the nearest city within 24 hours. If we had waited until the Monday morning to take him back to the doctor, well, according to the specialists he did not have until the Monday morning.

At first I wanted to beat my daughters family doctor to a pulp but the specialist explained that there was no fault with the doctor. It is exceedingly rare for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) to present in this way. In fact, it was highly unlikely that the family doctor would ever see another case of AML in a child.

I am not going to go into detail about life on that ward, you do not want to read about it and I am probably not capable of writing about it. We spent over six months there, and my grandson endured three courses of chemotherapy. Either my daughter or myself stayed with him day and night. Other members of the family would give us a few hours break when they could.

Buffy DVDs kept my daughter sane, my grandson probably knows every word of the first two Harry Potter films because every child on the ward seemed to watch them again and again and he could watch them through the windows of his room. Due to his condition my grandson had his own room so for 99% of the time he was separate from the other children.

During the time we were there children died, others returned from remission for further treatment and some went home again.

One day, the specialist announced that the treatment was not working and my daughter and son-in-law were given a choice to either take their son home for what little time was left or to try an extreme chemotherapy that could possible end his life in less time. Either way, he could go home for the weekend.

Over that weekend we had a family meeting and everyone agreed that anything was worth a try. We were desperate. I am positive we all prayed, even those like my husband who had not prayed for years. My daughter also sprinkled my grandson with some holy water from Lourdes. If someone told us that tomato ketchup on his toes would have cured him we would have used it. Strange though, I did not at any stage feel that my grandson was going to die.

On the Monday morning we took him back to hospital and he went down to theatre to have his bone marrow tested before the extreme treatment commenced. Do you know what? He did not have one leukaemic cell!

We cried, the doctors cried, the nurses cried, the laboratory staff cried – everyone cried, laughed and jumped up and down!

Surely this was a mistake?
The other results must have been wrong?
Someone has made a mistake!
What is happening?

No one has an explanation, the results of all of the tests were correct, no mistakes had been made. He was going to continue living! Whether you are religious or not it was a miracle!

Where am I going with all this? Well, after an experience like this, ones perspective on life changes dramatically. Am I worried that my bum looks big today? I might be making a fool of myself with this blog? That I am another year older? Yes I do worry about these and other things BUT now I can put these things into perspective.

My grandson started school today.

So what if he is the smallest in the class?
That he has lost his front teeth through the chemo?
That his body is scared?

He is alive and everything is a Blessing - everything!

Labels: AML Blessings Miracle Silver Linings

Posted by Miladysa at 10:35 AM 22 Comments

I arranged the funeral in accordance with my father’s wishes. On the evening before his body was brought home we held a wake at the house. Family and friends were invited and we sang songs and told stories until the wee small hours.

In the morning, his body was piped in to the sound of Scottish melodies and the party continued. On the way to the crematorium we sang some of his favourite songs; Hey Big Spender, Chattanooga Choo Choo and Maggie May. The children laughed and joined in as we waved to people we passed in the black limousine pretending that we were the Royal family.

Members of his Regiment placed the Union Jack Flag, his beret and medals on his coffin before his body was carried into the crematorium to the sound of Tina Turners ‘Simply the Best’.

One of his oldest friends stood in the place of a man of the cloth at the front of the room and spoke about my father. He told stories of their youth and of more recent events. He told it, as it was, warts and all. He spoke of someone he knew, someone we loved and not of God or the Church.

His coffin went through the blue velvet and gold tasselled curtains to the sound of the piper playing Lament for Flodden and we all stamped our foot in the Scottish tradition to release his soul and send it on its way. The piper then continued to play as he walked out of the cemetery into the distance.

We left the cemetery and went on to one, if not the biggest party I have ever organised. We partied, partied, partied like there was no yesterday and no tomorrow. People came from all over the country to attend, some people who I had never met before and who may not have even met him but they had heard of him or were friends of friends.

I remember people sitting singing, banging their glasses onto the table as they sang, young men and men who were much older than my father. Men who had seen war and who had said goodbye to so many over the years ,

"They put him in a matchbox and they sent him home to mum
They put him in a matchbox and they sent him home to mum
They put him in a matchbox and they sent him home to mum
And he aint going to jump no more ohh ohh
Glory Glory what a horrible way to die!
Glory Glory what a horrible way to die!
Glory Glory what a horrible way to die!
And he aint going to jump no more!"


It was the best funeral ever and still, to this day, all my children think that is how a funeral should be, in the tradition of celebrating a life not a mourning a death.

I had followed my father’s wishes to a 'T' but he had left no instruction what to do next.

I arranged for an oak casket for the ashes and as the new owner of my mothers family plot I arranged for it to be opened. As I have written previously, my mother had been buried in the Catholic part of the cemetery and my father was not permitted to be buried there. Well to hell with what was permitted, I was burying him where he wished to be above anything else, with my mother, and nothing on earth was going to stop me!

I arranged with a Minister, a former Regimental Padre to come one afternoon, 3 days after the funeral and say a couple of prayers and a reading. I had carried out my father’s wishes thus far but I could not lay him to rest without prayers. If he has a problem with that then we shall just have to discuss it when we meet again.

One of my cousins in full military dress laid the casket in the grave and a small number of us said a private Slán to a great man, husband, father and grandfather on a cold grey afternoon one September in 1992.

Labels: Death, Father, Funeral, Loss

Posted by Miladysa at 12:09 PM 6 Comments