Dad Was The Unconventional Hero

[Memoirs] 

Before I smashed my car I took my dad to see

the movie - A Room With A View with Helena

Bonham Carter in which O Mio Babbino Caro

is sung by Kiri Te Kanawa, I drove my dad all

the way from his small holding into the big city

and we went to the smart cinema theatre that

 

He liked so much, he was unusually quiet and

well-behaved and I felt proud of him in his suit

we watched a movie about Love where a very

unconventional hero wins the heroine - & I felt

my dad was the unconventional hero in mom’s

life and in mine - just like the hero George was

 

A free-thinking original in repressed & restricted

culture of Edwardian England - my dad was a

salty old sailor type in snobbish South African

culture of the 1980’s where curse words were

frowned upon, yet his heart was as big as the

universe, as my dad loved Dr Zhivago and My

 

Fair Lady and Gone With The Wind with those

elegant settings and clothes, he adored the story

& the beauty of the settings with his eyes shining

brightly and today I wish I had told him that it was

his story, but I only realized it with the aid of hind-

sight - that he fitted in perfectly, I saw him as

 

George Emerson, the free-spirited hero and mom

as the heroine Lucy, though mom never saw that

herself, she played the role of Queen Of Hearts -

Lewis Carrol, forcing my dad into the role of the

obedient King - years later I knew Dad was The

Phantom of the Opera all his life - living in the

 

Dungeons of mom’s fantasy life - seeing my dad

enjoying the movie I loved him and I knew my dad

was an important part of my life and when I fell ill

afterwards and my dad came to my aid all these

suspicions of his being a Knight that was given to

us as a Blessing was Justified