Dad's Eulogy

So...today it was my Dad's funeral. This is the Eulogy I wrote and read for him...Our Dad was born on the 29th June 1936. He was the second child of three born to Noel and Selena Allen, brother to Lewis and Marcia.He lived in Middleton and went to school at Durnford St where his favourite teacher was a Miss Schmidt. At 11 he went to Radcliffe Technical High School. He mostly rode there on his bike but sometimes caught the train from Bowker Vale. His old teacher Miss Schmidt lived near Bowker Vale and he sometimes went to her house for his tea. She was a good drawer apparently and she helped him with his drawing.By the age of 14 he was spending most of his time at the local cricket club. At 15 he left school and got an apprenticeship on the Middleton Guardian. It was printed on a Thursday and on Fridays he went round in the wagon delivering the paper to all the shops and newsagents. In his spare time he was still playing cricket and also started night school to study typography.It was around this time that his brother Lewis died in a motorbike accident, a traumatic family event that Dad could never really talk about. At the end of his apprenticeship he had to go on National Service where he served in Jordan and Cyprus. He spoke of being shot at once and also told of the time when the lorry he was in screeched to a halt and how he and his fellow soldiers bundled out of the back ready to defend it only to find it had stopped at a traffic light.He had first met Mum before his National Service at Middleton baths. They covered the pool with boards and held dances there. She asked him what he did and said he was a joiner and worked at the bottom of Wood St. She missed the joke and believed him. they dated a few times before he left but it fizzled out. While away on national Service dad wrote to his sister Marcia and asked her to get Mum's address for him and he started writing to her. Mum still has all those letters and she said that in all of them there was only ever one spelling mistake. Miss Schmidt had taught him well.It has been said that his spell on National Service was ruined his cricket career as he had the potential to one day play for Lancashire.Home from National Service he got a holiday job with the Manchester Guardian but when his temporary contract ended they took him on full time.He dated Mum again for awhile but again it fizzled out due to dad working nights and only have one evening a week free. Never one to give up Dad rang Mum again out of the blue and said he had tickets for a Sarah Vaughn Concert and would she like to go. She did go and after making more of an effort to see each other, after only six weeks they decided to get married. They married in 1960 on the one year anniversary of that Sarah Vaughn concert at Middleton Parish Church.Their first home was 108 Rochdale Rd in Middleton. dad was still working nights but would come home at 2.00am and put his music on and play the drums to relax. He loved his Jazz.I came along first in 1962 and the Rod 18 months later. James followed a few years after that and then Dad got the daughter he always wanted, Zoe. It was clear by this time that 108 was too small and so they found a house in Heywood, 211 Manchester Rd. It was in a bit of a state but with the help of his Dad and his uncle Ben they turned it into our wonderful home. Dad decorated it all himself and built all the wardrobes and shelving units. If the house was a mess the garden was worse. It was so overgrown that you would not have been surprised to find a lost tribe living undisturbed amongst it. Dad tamed the garden. He planted vegetables and created two lawns, one as perfect as a bowling green and a smaller one for us to play on. He also built us a double decker tree house.For someone who liked order, cleanliness and peace it beats me why he ended up with five children. Angus came along last but after the midwife kept on calling him Agnes they thankfully changed his name to Andrew. dad was still playing Football and Cricket for the Manchester Guardian teams. We spent many a weekend dragged off to cricket matches which we never watched preferring to just paly around the edge of the pitch.We had a holiday every year usually camping in Cornwall near Newquay or Padstow and later took trips to Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia and Portugal when Dad got the VW camper van.As we were growing up Dad decided to leave the Guardian and move to the Manchester Evening News because he felt he needed to be around in the evenings for us, not really to spend quality time with us, but for discipline.He was a strict parent. His mantra at that time was "Get up them dancers!", "Switch that TV off now!" and "Turn that music down" which I think is a bit rich coming from one who used to play the drums at 2.00 am in the morning.When he was giving us orders he was usually hoovering, cleaning or doing a crossword. I snapped at his instruction once, gave him a Nazi salute and shouted "Seig Heil!" before escaping...but it was just stupid wasn't it....because he was a fast runner!He ran and completed 9 marathons and at is peak of fitness completed one in less than three hours. There was a time when dad went down the garden to call Rod in for his tea and heard a cry from a nearby barn. He found Rod tied up and lying in the hay. The local lads responsible were disappearing across the field. Dad left Rod tied up and gave chase. Where they scrambled under barbed wire fences Dad leapt them. Eventually he caught them up and showed them his 'gratitude' for their treatment of his son. Those lads went on to become runners in their own right, one even running for England, and I like to think that it was Dad that inspired them to run faster and further.Though strict he was fiercely protective. He once met me after school and I pointed out the two lads that were bullying me. I will never forget the look on their faces as Dad held them, gently, by the throat against the wire mesh of the tennis courts and had a quiet word in their ear. They never bothered me again. He ran and he still cycled to work and back but he also started walking. He did the Pennine Way with his friend Brian and the Coast to Coast walk. He walked along Hadrian's Wall and did the West Highland Way but his greatest walk was from John O'Groats to Lands End again with Brian. Brian dropped out near Shrewsbury with terribly blistered feet but Dad carried on alone finally finishing it in  about 25 days.He used to smoke Tom Thumb cigars but not excessively in fact when he gave up no one noticed for at least a fortnight.When I was 21 he gave me a match box with 21 pounds in it."That's for not smoking" he said.I had to hand it back as I told him we had once found a box of cigarettes and I'd had a sneaky smoke of one." Ah right," he said, " well you can have it for being honest."Grandchildren began to appear on the scene and right from the start they got away with far more than his own children ever did. He adored them and they adored him. He taught them to ride their bikes, took them to the park and read them stories and mostly when the family got together he would spend his time keeping the little ones occupied and probably minimising the mess. He was always pleased to see them and equally pleased to see them go.Seeing him with his grandchildren I think made us appreciate his greatness more.He retired from the newspaper at 55. He did some gardening jobs for other people for a while and then he and Mum bought a café on Heywood market which they called 'That Café.' It was for Mum really but Dad agreed to help clear tables and wash up and after  about two weeks everybody thought it was his café. Having never been one for much social interaction, working on 'That Cafe' changed him and he began talking to everyone. He even started cooking though Mum nicknamed him 'Gordon Bleugh!'After they both full retired and sold 'That Cafe' they enjoyed the fruits of the labour and went out and saw a bit of the World. They visited China, Nepal, South Africa, Thailand, Egypt, India (twice), Turkey, Tunisia, Mexico, Peru, Cuba, Costa Rica and Vietnam as well as many holidays with grandchildren to Disneyland in Florida. They made lots of good friends on those holidays and were due to go on a Nepal reunion walking week in Northumberland this coming week.In 2004 they moved to Warwick on Eden. Dad was very happy here and kept up his cycling and walking in the countryside sometimes now with my sister's families dog, Patch. Patch adored Dad too. That's Dad with Patch on the front of the order of service.He had always been a regular church goer taking us to St Stephens in Middleton when we were growing up and once here attended this church becoming their Treasurer. He still loved his gardening, his sweeping, his cleaning and his modern Jazz. His head was filled with Jazz and he was constantly improvising and whistling tunes about the house especially in the kitchen. He had mellowed such a lot. This man who always greeted and said goodbye to his sons with a handshake, well now we felt we could even go in for a hug....though it still felt a bit weird and awkward. He knew we all loved him and we knew he loved us. I only heard him say those three little words once but he said it at a time in my life that he felt I needed to hear it. He didn't have to say it. I already knew.The family continued to grow with more grandchildren and even a great grand daughter. He knew and was excited to meet his great grandson who is one day overdue today. He will not meet him now but Ruben will hear all about his great grandad.Having enjoyed good health for much of his life, during a 'Well Man Check' while still at work the doctor asked Dad how he was feeling. Dad mentioned that sometimes when he sopped running he felt a bit dizzy. This lead to the discovery that one of Dad's Carotid arteries was 92% blocked. The specialist he was sent to said "Oh, you look like a man who looks after himself, well now I am going to look after you. " Dad had two operations to clear his Carotid arteries. It was around that time that they also discovered he had a leaky Aortic valve but not unduly concerned decided to monitor it. Later still he battled cancer of the bladder enduring chemo and radiotherapy and once he had recovered from that they decided to fix his leaky heart valve after all. Each time he regained his strength by walking through Gelt Woods.Earlier this year after becoming a little confused and finding difficulty in choosing the right words it was discovered that he had Alzheimer's. He couldn't read books anymore nor could he do his crosswords and for a short time even stopped whistling. The medication they prescribed him worked wonders and the Dad and Husband we knew returned to us but s a family we were horrified to face years of watching him succumb to dementia.He and we were spared that on the 29th August when the heart that had served him so well failed and he slipped away.On the last phone call I made home I did not actually speak to Dad but Mum had the phone on speaker so he could hear me."What's that noise?" I asked "Is Dad hoovering?""No it's the washing machine," said Mum "he only hoovers on Mondays and Saturdays now.""Blimey!" I said "How times have changed it used to every night."Then in the background Dad's voice rang out saying"Tell him not to come on Mondays or Saturdays!"Those were the last words I heard him say and so typical that those last words made me laugh. It was his sense of humour. It sounded just like my Dad. He was fit to the end walking five miles through Gelt Woods on the Thursday before he died.We are all very lucky and privileged that this quiet, gentle, strict, fiercely protective, tidy, honest, generous, funny, good, great magnificent man was our husband, our brother, our father, our grandfather, our great grandfather, our uncle, our colleague, our neighbour , our friend.He will live on in us, in our hearts, in our minds and in some of us, in our blood.Surely there is some measure of the man in the family he leaves behind. I admit I may be a little biased but our family is Premier League. We must never forget that we are Allen's by blood and follow his example;Do what you feel is right.Always do your best.Hoover on Mondays and Saturdays....and Never give up.He will be greatly missed but there will be whistling in God's kitchen tonight.