Sunday 10 November 2019

When my Dad came home





Dear Reader,

Every year on Remembrance Sunday I think of my father, Harold Huth, an actor and film producer after the first World War.  He served in the Royal Army Service Corps and was mentioned in Dispatches on three occasions.  I have a letter written in January 1916 congratulating my grandparents from a Colonel Harrison and his other officers, on their son's distinguished conduct and gallantry   My father never spoke about his war memories but was made ill from the gas he inhaled
all his life.

Thank you Dad for the small part you played allowing me to live in freedom, and thinking of you today I send you all my love.

                                                                               *



When my dad came home

he nodded off
in the old armchair,
any time,
forgot everything,
could name no names.

Tobacco smoke from Woodbines
filled the house,
he drank malt whisky,
came home unsteadily from the pub.

He talked of cricket, he whistled
and hummed old country and western songs,
rocked in the rocking chair
and potted up red geraniums.

He ate junket and white fish,
had headaches,
and he wept sometimes.

But we were good friends, my dad and I,
night times he told me stories,
and tucked me into bed.
I never asked him about the war,
and he never said.

                                                                            *

With best wishes, Patricia

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