For this month – formerly known as November, men (and women??) will start to sprout and sport splendid moustaches. This is all for a very good cause – check it all out here:- http://uk.movember.com/about. It is to raise much needed funds and awareness for men’s health – especially prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.

I have been thinking about my father hugely of late and no more so than today – the first day of Movember. He died almost exactly a year ago now from bowel cancer and we have all recently agreed that not having him around seems to be getting harder, not easier and we are all missing him hugely. He had one of the most splendid moustaches so this month will be hard. We all keep seeing similarities in other people …. SO why not turn a sad situation into something more positive.

Could you please send in photos of your moustaches from around the world and at the end of the month we will pick a winner. I promise to give generously to the charity for the best moustache – I want your stories of where your hair growth takes you, who you meet and general updates over the month too.

Let the battle begin. Ready, steady, GROW….

Here, in honour of my father and just to start things off is his effort. Beat that:-

There is no doubt that this recent obligation to buy it has much to do with the death of my father. We used to compare notes. Or at least I’d ring him on Saturday afternoons and ask him several questions about what I’d read – I was probably just trying to impress him – I doubt it ever worked. I am really missing him at the moment, almost more than before and it makes me feel closer to him but even more sad as I wade through clever articles that I have to have quiet conversations with him about in my head.

There was an article this week on the new Chief Executive of HSBC – Stuart Gulliver – he would have been very interested in that having spent much of his life in Hong Kong.

There was a question and answer page in the magazine which incensed me – questions were posed to the Ethiopian long-distance runner Haile Gebrselassie in The Inventory who has set 27 would records and won 2 Olympic gold medals. He was asked a number of questions – the same questions that presumably get asked to all their guests but frankly they were not remotely appropriate. They should have been changed. I would much rather see questions that relate to the person – not to how different people answer the same question.

He was asked the following questions:

How physically fit are you?
Duh

Public School or state school?
To which he replied that he didn’t get further than primary school because 100 children had to share 4 books

Do you have more than one home?

Do you believe in assisted suicide?
What sort of question is that to ask him?? He replied “We don’t really have this in Africa – many people wouldn’t choose to die but they do anyway because of illness, Aids, sanitation issues and lack of food and water”).

I am frankly completely stunned by the lack of sensitivity that question shows to him and his country. Unacceptable I think and I think my father might have agreed with me.

We are all very emotional obviously, but through the tears we have found a strange black humour and a sense of wonderment and love that we are all in this together and able to be part of the extraordinary circle of life….I almost feel like a herd of elephants. It’s very basic. Very fundamental. It’s what animals have been doing forever.

I’ve written about my father on many occasions before. He is not only my mentor but a very close friend. Somebody whose company I would search out to go to the pub with even if I was not related….

I wrote this one Father’s Day about him:-

“It was our years in Hong Kong that formed my strongest memories of my father. He was a fairly remote figure when I was growing up. He worked and my mother stayed at home. I mostly recall him in a suit having breakfast and occasionally popping home for lunch. I also remember lots of laughter, drinking, smoking and dancing, but not much of it involving us. Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep I remember him coming into my room. I don’t ever recall him reading me a story, I remember him waving his cigarette about to make a pattern in the dark and then leaving me to sleep in a smoke-filled room. I think the three of us were more of an irritation for him than anything else, slightly getting in the way of his sailing, his gin and tonics and the attention of his wife.

He has always put my mother before us and maybe that is how it should be. They enjoy each others company and have been married for 45 years. I sent him a virtual Father’s Day card today with the following quote attached

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother”
Theodore Hesburgh

I didn’t like the fact that he preferred to be with her when I was growing up, but now I can see how important that is as a life message. Obviously children will grow up and leave and it is important to maintain and nurture your relationship with your partner (almost) over and above that of your children and to show them how to live in a loving, respectful relationship. It wasn’t until my two brother’s and I were old enough to go to the pub with him that his view of us began to change (and possibly vice versa). Once we could hold our alcohol and our own in a conversation, he started to enjoy our company. He retired before the age of 60 and loves it. He has learnt how to fly. He has a huge lust for knowledge. He reads, he sails, he talks, he travels. He also learnt how to slow down and appreciate the smaller things in life, something he was unable to do during his working life.

He is the first person I would turn to for advice regarding the big decisions in my life. When I need clarity, I talk to him. He has always been able to see the bigger picture and to cut through the crap. About 8 months ago his cancer came back and he was given a fairly grim prognosis. “Oh well, shit happens” was his response to the news. He said that he had done all that he had ever wanted to do in his life and that everything else was a bonus. Not long ago, after 6 months of chemotherapy he has amazingly been given the “all clear”.

Who knows what that exactly means, but for now, I love the fact that he is around and interested in our lives and even secretly quite proud of all of us for different reasons. I think that now, after years of questioning what life was all about, he looks at his life, at his wife and at us and feels that he has achieved enough. If nothing else, I believe it was important for him to give us simply “a father”. Something he didn’t have the luxury of.

Long may it last.”

Well, it hasn’t lasted nearly long enough. He’s only 70. Too young. Yesterday, as I held his hand and rubbed his back and we talked about stuff and I told him all that he already knows he said in a very small voice “I am still trying to give your mother more of my life”…..and it made me cry.

What are we all going to do without him.

Just continuing briefly with the father theme…I mentioned in my previous post that I often thought about what my father might do in a similar situation before making my decision. So I thought it would be interesting to get some comments on “what was the best bit of advice your father ever gave you?”

Mine was “THINK before you speak” and “Don’t ever write a letter to someone when you’re angry”.

Whereas the advice my brother remembers most was given as he went off to university”

“Never get a girl pregnant and never put your head in the oven” – as he says in the comments, it completely ruined Freshers week for him.

We were amused to see that his notes described him as being “inebriated and merry”. My brother told me that it had been a great shame that he had fallen over because up until then he had been the “life and soul” of the party. “You mean, life arsehole” said my dad.

He is not feeling terribly proud of himself today.