1
‘I used to gaze at the stars
through the bars of my cell.
They comforted me – they seemed to be
watching over us during our hunger strike.
And even after the war itself was over,
they’d still be shining down.’
My dad, talking about the First World War.
He refused to fight on the grounds of his socialist beliefs
and served two years in Wormwood Scrubs jail.
He often talked about the war:
‘A collision of capitalist
juggernauts fuelled by the blood
of the working classes’
He always used socialist rhetoric
to describe the conflict but rarely revealed
his own experiences or personal feelings.
So he surprised me when
he talked about the ‘comforting stars’.
Because the only really strong
feeling he’d shown me was anger.
2
He stood four foot eleven
in his stocking feet; wiry,
placid and distant most times
and given to whistling.
He’d worked alongside
men twice his size, scrabbling
for coal in narrow seams
which forced those hardened
Lancashire miners to their hands and knees.
Dad’s world- the small man’s world-
was populated with potential enemies:
bigger men, capitalists, the morally degenerate,
Dad never dropped his guard; he was always ready
to unleash his feral temper.
My elder sister and I, were often caught up in his paranoia.
Should we display any symptom of capitalist decadence:
listen to jazz on the wireless
wear too much lipstick
get home too late at night
answer back
read American comics. And
he would knock us around the room.
He never touched my mother but
her pleadings never rescued us.
It wasn’t the physical pain
but his explosive fury which left us
gasping, dribbling urine,
almost too shocked to cry.
3
He brought all his meagre wages home
never spent a penny on booze, tobacco or himself.
We were never short of basic food or clothing
and the house was always warm, like my mother.
He found extra work- mowed lawns
clipped hedges- to earn money
for my piano lessons.
I once asked for a sheath knife
and he yelled and raged. But
He smiled and dug
into his old leather purse
for a costly album of Chopin studies.
I was learning to sniff the air
and watch for the tell-tale flare in his eyes.
Spontaneity was dangerous.
Showing any emotion was dangerous.
But playing the piano was safe
and he listened.
Beethoven’s‘Appassionata’ sonata
or the yearnings in a Brahms’ intermezzo.
I never knew if he felt what I was trying to express
we could never talk about it.
But he got angry if I didn’t practice.
4
I grew far bigger than him and dared to attack
the communist propaganda in the newspapers
which consumed his leisure time:
the ‘Daily Worker’
the ‘Soviet Weekly’,
and when we emigrated to New Zealand
the ‘Peoples Voice’.
By then I was able to yoke my anger to his.
we finger-stabbed and table-thumped
our way across the no-mans-land
between his dogma and my rebellion.
Exhaustion always won the day.
And in the silence mum would adroitly
slip in from the kitchen; ‘More tea? Yes, thanks.’
She’d smile, and seemed happy to provide the ritual
cuppa’ and treat our rancour as family chitchat.
After all, no one hit any one any more.
We argued less when he entered his eighties
which only served to distance me from him.
Small talk and awkward silence took the place
of shared anger and became a measure of just how
emotionally inarticulate we both were.
When he died aged ninety-eight
I eulogised at his funeral:
I praised his principles,
exemplified his sacrifices
and his hard work;
I meant every word.
But I felt a deep emptiness:
When a long life ends
sadness and celebration
embrace as old friends.
But regret walks alone.
Jack Perkins September 2004
