Remembering my Dad

Today would have been my Dad’s 90th birthday.  He was born on 20 January 1922 in Swaziland where his father was a doctor.  He was the 4th of 7 children – the “middle one” – following Lewis and the twins, Pendrell and Bridget.  He was baptised Roger Dawson O’Neill Waddington – Dawson being my grandmother’s maiden name and O’Neill a family name – although no one could tell us why as the family was not Irish but true blue English.  The sibling he was closest to was Val, whose birthday would have been yesterday.  Her full name was Valentine Emma Augusta O’Neill Waddington – what a mouthful! She was followed by Margaret and the youngest, Damer.

 Dad had a governess in Swaziland and started school work at 4, so he was young for his class when he started school at Mooi River Primary School.  The family lived there for the rest of time – when Aunt Val died about 8 years ago, she left a family house to Jen, my sister – that’s how long they lived there.  When Dad was in about Std 8 at Glenwood Boys High, he was in a terrible motor accident and spent a year off school, returning to Estcourt High when he went back to school.  He did very well in Matric, despite a year away, and was still only 16 when he finished school. He went to University for a year, before joining the army in early 1940 when he was nearly 18.  He served in Italy and Egypt – times he told us very little about – and visited Palestine before coming back to South Africa to finish at Varsity.  He would never travel overseas again – he said he’d seen enough during the war.

 He did his teaching diploma because that was all he could get a loan for, and his parents couldn’t afford to pay Varsity fees – doctors were not rich in those days.  He met Mom when she boarded with his parents in Mooi River and after a long courtship and engagement they were married in 1950.  A wonderful, happy marriage that sadly lasted only 38 years.

 Dad taught at Weston, and at Warner Beach, before being made a Primary School Principal at Paddock and then Verulam.  He was then pulled back into High School Science and taught briefly at Mansefield before finishing his teaching career in Ixopo.  He remained a thorn in the flesh of the education department until he retired at 60 as he wouldn’t apply for high school principal’s posts.  He was loved by all his pupils, who called him “Tubby” – his sisters called him “Podge.”

He was a keen sportsman – rugby, hockey, running and tennis – running the Comrades marathon several times, once after being told by doctors that he would never walk upright again after an abdominal op. He was a great musician.  He had a perfect boy treble voice and was head chorister at St Thomas’ in Durban, but always claimed that his voice didn’t live up to its early promise when it broke.  He was a wonderful choir master and singing teacher – even getting big high school boys to enjoy singing.  He was always involved in the church, and served as a sub-deacon (Lay Minister) until he took umbrage at something Desmond Tutu said and resigned from the church.

He kept bees – and started off other beekeepers who remained true friends. My name – Deborah – means “bee” – chosen because of his love for his bees. He died of cancer in April 1989.  The day he died a swarm of bees came into the chimney in the lounge and we were in a state of panic.  We phoned one of his bee-keeper friends and she said, “Bees know things.  His bees have come to say goodbye.  Just wait awhile and they will leave.”  And they did.

So there is the potted history – but who was he really?  He was warm and friendly – we couldn’t go anywhere without meeting someone he knew – and who was delighted to meet up with him.  If he didn’t know someone, he’d make a new friend.  People loved him, and he loved people. He was extremely intelligent and well read – and when he didn’t know something, he would find out – and that was in the days before Google!  He could be opinionated and intolerant – when he hated something, nothing would change his mind.  He hated modern technology – and when I bought my first computer with the money he left me, I tongue-in-cheek called it “Dad.”  He was so musical – and I loved singing with and learning from him.  He taught me to harmonise before I could even read.  He was a philanthropist, despite having very little disposable income!  It wasn’t the amount of money – it was the time and care.  He built a school for the local children almost single handedly, making the bricks himself.  He was generous to a fault – no-one in need left his door empty handed.  He drove the ambulance for the Red Cross and donated blood regularly. He was impulsive and adventurous – we’d set off on holidays on the spur of the moment – he even got Mom and me hiking down the Wild Coast.   He had a wonderful empathy with nature – he kept snakes, tamed a sunbird which would come into the house and “talk” with him, loved his cats so much that he tried giving one of them mouth-to-mouth respiration when it was knocked down by a car.  He embraced his inner child in the days before anyone even knew there was an inner child.  He didn’t care what people thought of him – he just played!  I remember skipping down West Street in Durban, holding his hand – and later being mortified when he did things like that!  He would come to visit me at Boarding School in the big yellow Ixopo School bus – humiliating for a teenager, but he didn’t care!  He just wanted to see his kid!

And for me, that is the thing I remember and most about Dad.  He loved his family.  He was a devoted son and wrote to his mother every Sunday until she died – “writing” taped letters once she started losing her sight.  He loved his in-laws – my Granny and Grandpa -  although he didn’t call them anything until we were born and he could call them Granny and Grampa.   He seconded his brother-in-law, Grahame, when he ran Comrades - after gifting him his Comrades number 49.  He was such a devoted husband – he sold his typewriter to buy the wedding license - and all her life, he protected her from anything that might upset her.  He loved his kids. When I was a baby, he apparently used to stop people in the street and say, “Do you want to see my beautiful baby?”  He played with us – I remember him taking us swimming early in the mornings, and spending a whole holiday building a boat with us that we all learnt to paddle and even sail.  He took us on amazing holidays and enjoyed sharing books and songs with us.  He helped us keep a sense of “magic” – enjoying fantasy and games.  He was a fantastic Grampa – picking the kids up and putting them on ladders so they could wave to the steam train, balancing them on his hand and lifting them up high into the air, to their squeals of delight, fetching them from my room at the crack of dawn, so he could have a private play with them, even in the days before he died, making origami birds and little toys so they would have them when he was gone.

There is so much I could say about him  - but that would take a whole book.  I loved my dad and miss him still – but I’m so glad I had him as long as I did.