A Memory and a Thank you To me, my Father was the most complex man but with simple beliefs. His aspirations ran high for all his children but there is one aspiration that has stayed with me all my life and one that I continue to aspire to which is the total and absolute love of Classical music. The most uncompromising virtue which stayed with him all his life. The principals of composition, balance and the unequivocal question and answer models that abounds in most if not all Classical pieces that both he and I have loved. It would be a Sunday morning and Dad was up making tea. As children, we would be lying in our beds sleeping until you hear that first loud note. The note you knew would most definitely wake you from your slumbers and stir your soul. No matter how you tried not to listen it captured you and occupied all thoughts. The smell of bacon cooking, Dad’s Garam masala Scrambled egg and the following piece was a masterful stroke of genius by him. The short piece I’d like to share with you all is Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner. This personifies and embodies my Father with its themes and strategies of redemption. Tannhauser was a man with many inner conflicts and bordering self-destructive behaviours and tendencies and yet it also portrayed his own metamorphosis into a Knight in armour of medieval times battling for the Good and for Love. If you knew my Father at all you would see real similarities in both characters. I also believe that my Father’s love of Wagner echoed and indeed complimented my Mother’s Love of the Knights Templar and Young Henry. When he listened to music you could visibly see his metamorphosis. His blue eyes would fill for the pure joy it would bring him.

I miss listening to all your stories. What I would give right now just to hear one more...

I miss the nature trails, the blueberry hunts, 2001 film in Dublin 1968, the beers and ales, the curries, chilli's, Beethoven and Heavy Bombers ET150, Westbury factory, pubs, the bloody hell Christopher's, organic chemistry, ketone bodies, ornithology and other birds. I miss the telescopes, constellations and that's Jupiter boy. I miss the fiery tempers and Captain Hurricane fury. Most of all I miss my dear old Uncle Brian......