You probably haven't heard of my dad yet, but he's an author.
This is the two of us after a day out at Rufford Abbey in north Notts.
Although he has been writing for as long as I can remember and has written three novels, with a fourth on the way, it took 25 years of never giving up for O-Books to accept one of his books. He will be 75 when it becomes available on the bookshelves but what a testimony to tenacity.
Dad used to promise us a big house in the best area in Nottingham, once he sold his book. I don't think we ever took him seriously, not because we knew anything about the dreams of a drunk back then, but because he was always telling stories.
We got the one about the first Christmas pudding; haggises running around scottish hills, one set of legs longer than the other so they didn't fall off the mountain side; the story of macaroni and other wild, outlandish tales to keep fidgetty children firmly stuck to dining chairs until the grown ups had finished eating.
It was dad who taught me how to play chess and we'd shut ourselves in another room for hours. Or we played word dice games. He never let me win and thank goodness for that. It made me work hard and built a fighting, competetive spirit.
He was as high as a mountain and wide as the sky, my dad. We both loved those weekend and school holiday epic walks with Rebel, our black labrador cross. Oh, we'd put the world to rights, the two of us. We'd paint fairy tales across the sky with those dreams of a world full of justice and rightness. We were what Mum would call 'as thick as thieves'.
It was as we got older that the darkness set in and the evil shadow of his alcoholism strangled the light from his eyes and rational thought from his mind. I grew used to lying in bed, rigid with fear, listening to his drunken rants, afraid he'd come upstairs and murder us in our beds.
My high as a mountain and wide as the sky dad shriveled to less than a dirty molehill.
Mum packed his bag and kicked him out when I was 15. I came home from a theatre visit and the house was quiet. He'd gone and with him went the dark, black shadow of his illness. For us, mum, my sister and two brothers at least.
For Dad, it began his climb to wholeness and health, sobriety and sanity. It was to be a long journey but he never gave up. And he's still growing: back to that high as a mountain and wide as the sky dad. I think he may even have the odd haggis running around at his feet somewhere.
This is the link to author Robert Page's book.
his blogspot is
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