My Dead Dad, by one half of Your Dad

12 Responses

  1. Matthew says:

    Hey Ian, not sure you’ll see this as it’s on a ten year old post… I stumbled upon your website. My mother was one of your fathers four wives. They were married in Bradford in the mid 80’s, I think you attended. They divorced a couple of years later. If memory serves me right he took her for a fair bit of money and the divorce was anything but amicable. I didn’t have much to do with either of them at the time. There is no malice intended in this message I just found your post about him very interesting and it has brought a bit of clarity to a very hazy part of my life… best regards…

  2. Davideo Kidd says:

    Thanks for sharing this traumatic time with us. Tt’s something I’ve yet to face, but your honesty will help me when the time comes. I feel sorry for your Dad as he wasn’t able to experience the closeness many of us take for granted. We all have work to do in each incarnation and Alan had a difficult time of it.

    Love Dave

  3. noel says:

    Hi Ian, my dad left (this world) permanently when I was 11, and in the last few years (but for some time before, too) I have been finding out bits and pieces of his dark side, things that make myself make more sense to myself. Perhaps having him alive would have made it all clearer and helped me to know what I should look out for in myself, stop myself becoming and steer clear of! It is strange that death can be the biggest lesson. Hope life treating you well! 😉

  4. Susan says:

    Hello Ian,

    Somehow I stumbled on this very poignant memoire of your late father, thank you for sharing your personal story and for writing with such complete truth, honesty, humour and compassion.

    My father died last year, but my 97 year old narcissistic mother is still full of beans and mischief..and really does hate everyone but pretends to like them to get what she wants !!!

    Money..are yes, makes you think it really is the root of all evil when you’ve had an ‘n’ for a parent!

    Thinking of you, lots of love,

  5. eamonn says:

    Me and Suzanne like this piece very much. All the best.

  6. bob says:

    Funny things, parents, no? I gave the valedictory address at my Dad’s funeral and, although I’d never felt very close to him, nor can I say I’ve missed him much since he went, I was in absolute bits doing it and had to cut it short before the end because I could barely speak.
    I know it’s not the point, but I’ll say it anyway – I can’t remember you ever writing anything finer than this, Ian. Thanks for sharing it.

  7. Paul Williams says:

    Thank you for sharing this Ian.

  8. Graham says:

    You certainly haven’t missed out on anything having Jean & Ralph for parents. Your mum’s a wonderful woman. “we all make mistakes” she said when someone else was labeling me a social outcast. I’ll love her forever for that.

  9. Mark Richards says:

    Ian, I don’t usually read your blog..nothing sinister, just don’t often get around to it….but I did this. You are your best subject matter and you deal with the challenge in a creative, witty and deeply moving way.

    My own father was a nice, kind man and I wrote and delivered a long address outlining the details at his funeral. It went down well. But a couple of guests at the wake, men and women who had known him long before I had, gave me knowing, sympathetic half smiles and said nothing. I left the generally benign event wondering whether I had been gulled for 50 years.

    Thanks.

    Mark

  10. yammerman says:

    Great writing Ian and I ticked a few too many boxes on the sociopath list for my own liking.

  11. Ian Marchant says:

    I liked your Mum; she was a character. I even just remember Martin. Ralph is my real father, and that’s where I get any good stuff from.

  12. Graham says:

    Ah, Ian. The death of a parent is always a loss. You must have been abandoned by your dad just about the time I first met you, if you were ten. I suppose that him leaving counts as more of a loss than his death in some ways.
    I know that when my mum died a couple of years ago, the strongest emotions I felt were guilt and regret, mainly because of the number of times that I’d neglected to go round and see her when she was alive. She died six weeks after being diagnosed with the cancer, and I think I saw more of her in those six weeks than I had in the previous three or four years. She got her own back though, I spent many hours chasing round to find out of hours pharmacies for her morphine, only to get back to her house as she realised that she had enough for a day or two after all.
    She told me she forgave me everything though. and I had a very reassuring dream a while after she died where she was reunited with her dad and my brother Martin who died on the railway when he was six. It was like watching her going home and all the guilt and worry evaporated then as I knew she was at peace.
    And Ian, don’t worry about inheriting any sociopathic tendencies, we all have them. I certainly do, and I never even met your Dad. It’s how we use them that’s important. And I’m sure the worst in us can always be turned to good account if we know it and see it for what it is.
    Well Ian, I’m sorry to hear he’s died and I’m more sorry he wasn’t the dad or the man that he could or should have been.
    Love to you.
    xx

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