Dadblog

My dad died last week. I’ve been saying that a lot in the last few days.

“How are you?”

“Umm, not that great, actually. My dad died last week.”

Like millions of other people he won’t get an obituary in a national newspaper, however much he deserved one. So this is his obituary.

The bare facts are: born in Manchester in 1935, didn’t go to university, worked for the Midland Bank after National Service, climbed up the ladder to become a senior manager in the international finance team, moved down South in the early Seventies to work in the City, married to Margaret, three sons, left Midland in the late 1980s, went on to work for Crown Agents, finally retired in the early 1990s. Keen gardener, Manchester United fan, massive book collector and reader, Labour supporter. He died as a result of complications arising from a series of illnesses over the previous two years, in Portugal, in his holiday home, with his wife beside him.

Actually, that’s not a bad list. But it still doesn’t come close. Because the thing that everyone who knew him will say about my Dad is that he was one of the most decent human beings they knew. Fundamental honesty and decency were his guiding principles. We might all cheat a bit and lie a bit and spin a bit to get through the day, but I can’t think of a single instance - not one - where Dad could have been accused of any of these things. He worked hard, of course. He brought home the bacon and created the financial foundations for a family, no question. But many millions of his men of his generation did the same. The thing that set him apart was his decency.

He leaves behind a great many things, but I think his legacy is going to be the memories of a great many people who were helped by him. He was a great helper. Every extended family has someone they turn to in times of crisis, someone who can write letters and make phone calls and sort things out. In our family, that was Dad.

As his son, I’ve got a whole parade of memories. Play fights in the hall at home. His epic garden bonfires (and the time I set fire to his lawn trying to light a barbecue). The little roller he used to smooth out the edges of wallpaper. His old bureau, with its secret drawers and compartments. Playing one-touch football inside a box on the sand on the beach at Cleveleys. His face turning bright purple and the veins on his neck fit to burst as he laughed at Last of the Summer Wine (back when it was funny). Him standing with my son while the two of them filled a bucket of water to throw at each other. Him raising an eyebrow when I checked in for my gap year to Australia and asked for a smoking seat, forgetting he didn’t know I smoked. Mad Saturday afternoons to Woolworths on Sevenoaks High Street to buy pick n mix and all sorts of esoteric household objects.

“He leaves a wife and three grown-up sons.” He certainly does. He leaves them feeling very sad and very proud. A good man, my father was.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I’ve just discovered that Matt Ridley, the author of The Red Queen, and Matt Ridley, the chairman of Northern Rock, are the same person:

Matthew White Ridley (born February 7, 1958, in Newcastle upon Tyne) is an English science writer, businessman, and aristocrat. He was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford where he received a doctorate in zoology before commencing a career in science journalism. Ridley worked as a science editor of The Economist from 1984 to 1987 and was then their Washington correspondent from 1987 to 1989 and American editor from 1990 to 1992.[1][2] Ridley was chairman of the Northern Rock Building Society, which became the first British bank for decades to suffer a run on its finances.[3] Eventually he was forced to resign as chairman in 2007.