Dear Dad Happy Birthday. You would have been 75 today. I was going to write something for Sunday, but you hated Father’s Day, thought it was commercial nonsense, though you were gracious about any cards, presents or phone calls. You were always gracious, actually, except when you were impatient because I was speaking slowly or [...]
THAT is one of the great first lines. I can’t get away from Stoppard it seems: we celebrated Mum’s birthday by going to see Arcadia. (I should also have remembered that the version of The Cherry Orchard which Dad and I saw at the Old Vic last summer was actually by Stoppard too). Et in [...]
Relax and shop. That’s what the screen in the departure lounge tells me to do. I decide to worry (ash cloud, global poverty, did I pack the right shoes) and write instead. If we humans don’t much like being told what to do (shop) we like being told how to feel (relaxed) even less. On [...]
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
I still chat to Dad regularly. It’s a habit I started 31 years ago and have no intention of breaking now. He always was a good listener because he was genuinely interested in other people. I think this was one of the main reasons for his success with women as often men who want to [...]
Saturday, February 20, 2010
I’ve made a discovery: there’s something of the divine in telemarketers. Stay with me. This began a couple of years ago, after Dad’s first heart attack. Dad was resting when I answered the phone and a cheery but hard-edged voice clad in an Estuary accent asked for Mr. Prior. I said he wasn’t available and [...]
My dad, Roger, died on 27 December, 2009. He was 74. I am 32. I was/am his only child. He lived alone in Belfast, in Northern Ireland. I have lived in America for more than nine years but now I’m about to move into his house, where I lived from the age of 12 until [...]
