Nojomo 20 in Nojomo 2014

What were the special things I used to do with my dad when I was young?

My dad had a highly stressful job so he was either stressed or great fun, depending on work. So let’s talk about the fun.

• dad had, for a short time, a green TR7 which had headlights that opened and closed. I used to wait to hear him drive in at 6 o’clock, run to the door and open it so that I could see the ‘eyes’ close. He also had a special grey zip up cardigan that he liked to wear when he came home. It was a race between myself and my siblings as to who would get it for him. When I got there first I put it on, the sleeves dangling over my hands, the body of it down to my knees. He always had his seat on the sofa, anyone sitting in it would be booted out, good naturedly, and I often would snuggle up to him. I loved resting my head on his chest, it was warm and safe with the gentle beat of his heart and the gurgles of his digestive system.

• nimmity nims. I have given nimmity nims to many children over the past twenty years, all of whom love them. Sitting on the sofa, you put the child on your lap facing you, hold their hands and say the rhyme while bouncing then up and down accordingly. The rhyme is ‘this is the way my lady rides, a nimmity nim, nimmity nim a nimmity nimmity nim. This is the way the gentleman rides, a trot a trot a trot. This is the way the farmer rides, a Gallup a Gallup a Gallup a Gallup away into the country! (At this point you move your legs left and right, slowly) this is the way the old man rides, hobbldey hoy, hobbldey hoy aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnd (open your legs and get ready to ‘drop’ the child to the floor) doooooowwwwwwwn into the ditch!’ One of my saddest days was being told that I was too big!

• walking up his legs, he would stand in front of the fire (possibly other places but that’s where I remember) and we (one at a time obviously) would face him, hold his hands and walk up his legs until we reached half way up his belly. Once there we would flip our legs over our heads and onto the floor again.

• going for walks. I found walks reeeeally booooooooring but dad made them fun. I used to love riding on his shoulders, I could see the whole world from up there! And when he was tired from carrying us, from nowhere appeared Mr Wolf. He would stalk ahead of us while we called out “what time is it Mr Wolf!” he would call back several different o’clocks before excitement of ”DINNER TIME! GRRRRRRRRRRR!” and we would squeal and flee in every direction.

• we were older and washing up was the kids’ responsibility. There were four of us so each night would be two us. Dad invented a fair and just system. He would randomly pat two heads, irrelevant of whether we’d done it last, whoever was patted would complain while dad laughed and skipped out the room… Except at weekends when dad wasn’t working and we would pounce on him and pat his head. Heh heh heh!

• related to the last, we had a couple of those old tape recorders, rectangular and flat. Every so often, once we’d forgotten about the last time, mum and dad would set up one of the tape recorders behind the hatch into the dining room (which we used as a music room). They pressed ‘play’ and ‘record’ so that they picked up our conversations to play back afterwards, much to our embarrassment and giggles!

• he hugged me through much teenage heartache, with lots of sympathy.

• he has always been there, we had our battles and we made up, but it was mostly good.

• when tally was born he was my go to man, we spoke on the phone often, I had one question after another. Dad supported whatever decision I made and held my crying daughter when he babysat.

Now her plays hide and seek with his grandkids, he plays races up and down the back garden and kicks the football around. He takes them to the park and, in December, he’s coming to look after Lila on the days after her operation.

He doesn’t think he was a great dad when we were kids but i think you’ll agree that he was fabulous (and still is).

Last updated November 20, 2014