I have nothing but happy memories of my childhood. I’m glad I got to tell you that when we talked about parenting in recent years. I know how important it was to you.

I know you were proud of Jennifer and me, but more importantly I hope you were proud of yourself and how you seemingly effortlessly juggled a successful career with being a present and loving father.

I try to channel you in my own parenting, and in doing so I have an even deeper appreciation for your ability to advise without lecturing, sacrifice without guilting, guide without making decisions for me.  You made it look easy and now I know it wasn’t.
One legacy that unfortunately I haven’t been able to pass on to my own children is a love of old musicals. In the days before DVDs and streaming, you had a collection of VHS tapes of wonderful old movies with Danny Kaye, Donald O’Connor, Gene Kelly and Doris Day. Although I haven’t seen them recently I know that if I ever want to feel close to you I just need to track down a copy of the Court Jester (a classic Danny Kaye film), Calamity Jane or Singing in the Rain.  They instantly bring back happy memories.
I was an anxious child. There was an industrial size fire extinguisher outside my bedroom as a child. It looked a little incongruous next to the antique chest. It was your practical solution to my recurring nightmares of our house burning down. Now that I’ve thought about it a bit more I suspect it was also for your peace of mind. Your housewarming gift when Glenn and I first moved in together was a fire blanket for our kitchen.
I took the privileges of my childhood for granted at the time but I don’t now. Endless weekends spent at horse shows in sunshine and heat, torrential rain and freezing cold. I don’t remember you ever complaining. In fact I don’t remember you complaining about very much ever. You were always more concerned making sure that everyone else was ok to worry about yourself.
You were my rock. Not just during childhood but in my adult life too. You continued to guide, inspire and support me. I remember you visiting me in New York in 1994. I was too self absorbed to know if you were there on business or just to see me, but at the time, it was all about me. A couple of years later you took me out for lunch in London and opened my eyes to how unhappy I was in my job. Again, you didn’t tell me what I should do, but helped me realise I needed to make some changes.  That lunch led me on a path that ended up in Australia so perhaps you may have regretted your advice that day.
You were always fascinated by technology and were an early adopter of many gadgets which are commonplace now but seemed futuristic at the time. We were the first people I knew with a mobile phone. It was a huge brick thing so not particularly mobile but very useful when we were out at horse shows.


You were also ahead of your time in working from home. I remember Sunday afternoons at the Gate House listening to the keys on your manual typewriter furiously sounding out your weekly article, followed by dictation over the phone to Dublin.

At Crooked Cottage you had a studio set up so you could do radio segments from home. But I know you weren’t a fan of video calls so it was probably just as well you didn’t have to endure the current world of daily zoom meetings.



You welcomed Glenn into our family with warmth and kindness even though he’s Australian. Which in itself isn’t a bad thing but did bring the possibility of me living on the other side of the world. But before we did that, we lived in London and we loved spending weekends at Crooked Cottage with you.  We brought an assortment of Australian flatmates at various times. You were never fazed by them, and were always happy to have a full house.
I love living in Australia. I live with my choice to be so far away but it hasn’t always sat easy and never more so than now. But you never made me feel like we should move back.  I always knew you were there for me so I felt safe being on the other side of the world.


I have learnt that time is fluid. Our minds aren’t linear, neatly organised libraries of days, months and years. Time expands and contracts. The weeks we spent in the UK may have been a small proportion of each year but they have filled a bigger space in our memories. I hope that was true for you too.


Those memories aren’t all big events like milestone birthdays or weddings. Although those are special too. My precious memories are of sitting in your conservatory with you in Bo’Ness, reading the papers, chatting quietly about this and that. Of you squeezing my hand and saying how marvellous it was that we were visiting. Of watching you play bananagrams with Sam in the dining room in Polperro with the fishing boats in the bay behind you. Of playing mini golf in Linlithgow while trying to avoid getting in the middle of a swinging golf club sword battle between grandchildren. Of sitting in a pub in Dublin when you flew there to see us in 2012?? and you drank a cup of tea while Glenn enjoyed his first Guinness.  Of many times sitting outside in the sunshine watching your grandchildren running around laughing and you telling me what a great job I was doing raising the boys. I think that last one might be a good example of your generosity and always seeing the best in people.


Going further back, I know it wasn’t easy for you to travel but you made the journey to Australia 3 times for me. You sang songs to the boys as babies, made up funny poems for them and walked with us along the beach. I am so glad that you got to see where we live.

You were a wonderful grandpa to Sam and Dom.  You met them as newborn babies and saw them grow up over the years. They adored visiting you and not only because your kitchen cupboards always had good biscuits. They appreciate a good joke and you always had one ready.
I hope those memories were enough for you not to feel cheated by the physical distance between us. Every time I left the UK I thought about how it might be the last time I would see you in person. Never more so than last year. I can remember our last hug outside the house in the Peak District. Every visit was meaningful and memorable.


I’m not sure what the appropriate equivalent of physical closeness is - but whatever it is, we had that in spades. I miss waking up to your emails that you had sent over night. I miss talking to you on the phone, hearing your news and sharing mine. I miss your insightful advice and your neverwavering confidence in me. I never really felt far away from you when we were in such close contact.


I feel so immensely privileged to be your daughter. You were funny and fun. You were the most thoughtful, loving, considerate, generous and patient person I’ve ever known. You lived with the pain of psoriasis and arthritis but never complained. All your life you put other people first. You live on in us and I will do my utmost to instil the same values into my children so your legacy lives on through future generations.







I have nothing but happy memories of my childhood. I’m glad I got to tell you that when we talked about parenting in recent years. I know how important it was to you.
I know you were proud of Jennifer and me, but more importantly I hope you were proud of yourself and how you seemingly effortlessly juggled a successful career with being a present and loving father.
I try to channel you in my own parenting, and in doing so I have an even deeper appreciation for your ability to advise without lecturing, sacrifice without guilting, guide without making decisions for me.  You made it look easy and now I know it wasn’t.
In the days before DVDs and streaming, you had a collection of VHS tapes of wonderful old movies with Danny Kaye, Donald O’Connor, Gene Kelly and Doris Day. Although I haven’t seen them recently I know that if I ever want to feel close to you I just need to track down a copy of the Court Jester (a classic Danny Kaye film), Calamity Jane or Singing in the Rain. 
You were ahead of your time in working from home. I remember Sunday afternoons at the Gate House listening to the keys on your manual typewriter furiously sounding out your weekly article, followed by dictation over the phone to Dublin.

I know you weren’t a fan of video calls so it was probably just as well you didn’t have to endure the current world of daily zoom meetings.
I took the privileges of my childhood for granted at the time but I don’t now. Endless weekends spent at horse shows in all weathers. I don’t remember you ever complaining. In fact I don’t remember you complaining about very much ever. You were always more concerned making sure that everyone else was ok to worry about yourself.
You were my rock. Not just during childhood but in my adult life too. You continued to guide, inspire and support me. I remember you visiting me in New York in 1994. I was too self absorbed to know if you were there on business or just to see me, but at the time, it was all about me. A couple of years later you took me out for lunch in London when I was having a hard time at work.  You didn’t tell me what I should do, but helped me realise I needed to make some changes.  That lunch led me on a path that ended up in Australia so perhaps you may have regretted your advice that day.
You welcomed Glenn into our family with warmth and kindness even though he’s Australian. Which in itself isn’t a bad thing but did bring the possibility of me living on the other side of the world. But before we did that, we lived in London and we loved spending weekends at Crooked Cottage with you.  We brought an assortment of Australian flatmates at various times. You were never fazed by them, and were always happy to have a full house.
I love living in Australia. I live with my choice to be so far away but it hasn’t always sat easy and never more so than now. But you never made me feel like we should move back.  I always knew you were there for me so I felt safe being on the other side of the world.


I have learnt that time is fluid. Our minds aren’t linear, neatly organised libraries of days, months and years. Time expands and contracts. The weeks we spent in the UK may have been a small proportion of each year but they have filled a bigger space in our memories. I hope that was true for you too.


Those memories aren’t all big events like milestone birthdays or weddings. Although those are special too. My precious memories are of sitting in your conservatory with you in Bo’Ness, reading the papers, chatting quietly about this and that. Of you squeezing my hand and saying how marvellous it was that we were visiting. Of watching you play bananagrams with Sam in the dining room in Polperro with the fishing boats in the bay behind you. Of playing mini golf in Linlithgow while trying to avoid getting in the middle of a swinging golf club sword battle between grandchildren. Of sitting in a pub in Dublin when you flew there to see us in 2012?? and you drank a cup of tea while Glenn enjoyed his first Guinness.  Of many times sitting outside in the sunshine watching your grandchildren running around laughing and you telling me what a great job I was doing raising the boys. I think that last one might be a good example of your generosity and always seeing the best in people.


Going further back, I know it wasn’t easy for you to travel but you made the journey to Australia 3 times for me. You sang songs to the boys as babies, made up funny poems for them and walked with us along the beach. I am so glad that you got to see where we live.

You were a wonderful grandpa to Sam and Dom.  You met them as newborn babies and saw them grow up over the years. They adored visiting you and not only because your kitchen cupboards always had good biscuits. They appreciate a good joke and you always had one ready.
I hope those memories were enough for you not to feel cheated by the physical distance between us. Every time I left the UK I thought about how it might be the last time I would see you in person. Never more so than last year. I can remember our last hug outside the house in the Peak District. Every visit was meaningful and memorable.


I’m not sure what the appropriate equivalent of physical closeness is - but whatever it is, we had that in spades. I miss waking up to your emails that you had sent over night. I miss talking to you on the phone, hearing your news and sharing mine. I miss your insightful advice and your neverwavering confidence in me. I never really felt far away from you when we were in such close contact.


I feel so immensely privileged to be your daughter. You were funny and fun. You were the most thoughtful, loving, considerate, generous and patient person I’ve ever known. You lived with the pain of psoriasis and arthritis but never complained. All your life you put other people first. You live on in us and I will do my utmost to instil the same values into my children so your legacy lives on through future generations.