SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE
A family photo with Bernard on the right with his Uncle Wilfred, plus his mum, dad and brother
One evening, while we were drinking coffee alone together in the front room, my 90-year-old father disappeared and after a few minutes returned with an armful of light green cardboard folders, homemade files held together with gummed brown paper.
‘Please take these,’ he said, as his cornflower blue eyes met mine.
Each cover was marked with a date in black felt tip. I opened the first, and then several more. The contents were my letters home between 1954 and 2000. The manuscript pages were descriptive, anguished and loving, as well as patronising and sometimes ill tempered. As he prepared to die, Dad’s precious hoard had become a burden he could bear no longer.