The PR Blog

A Life Well Lived - He Crossed Oceans. He Found Love. He Found Home.

Today would have been my father's 100th birthday.

He was born on 5 June 1926 in Douglas on the Isle of Man and passed away in Queensland Australia on 4 August 2015, aged 89.

His voyage through life was one that many children today would struggle to imagine. He grew up during the Depression. He wore wooden clogs. He scrumped apples. He followed coal trains to collect fallen coal. He knew what it was to go without and what it was to work.

He was part of a generation that could wield a shovel, get dirty, work hard all day and still find something to smile about when evening came.

Like all of you reading this, I have a special place in my heart for my parents. If you did not, you would probably be elsewhere, shouting about the end of civilisation, the end of the planet or the latest fashionable cause. Instead, you are here.

That makes you what I call "One of Us."

People who still honour the privilege of life. People who treasure family. People who understand that a childhood gifted to us by loving parents is one of the greatest blessings we ever receive.

This is my tribute to my Dad.

The same, but different, to yours.

When my father was a little boy he contracted a mild case of polio. Later, as a young man serving in the Royal Navy, he suffered tuberculosis. Life was never particularly easy for him, in the early years, but life was rich in his adult years. 

I know surprisingly little about his early years because they belonged to a world that existed long before I arrived. What I know comes largely from the stories he told me.

Stories of the Isle of Man. Stories of the Moordie Doo Dog. Stories of Peel Castle. Stories of the Fairy Bridge. Stories of storms hammering the quay at Douglas.

Like many young men of his generation, he answered the call to serve. He joined the Royal Navy, although he needed his mother's permission before he could sign up. She gave it reluctantly and off he went.

He became a torpedo man.

Having left school at fourteen, he was astonished to discover that the Navy expected him to learn about electricity. By the end of the war he emerged not only as a sailor but as a qualified electrician.

He served in Japan as part of the occupation forces and left behind photographs that remain treasured family possessions.

The boys of that generation cared.

They gave a damn.

After being demobbed from the Royal Navy on 5 July 1947, he spent a year driving trains on the Isle of Man.

Then, in June 1948, he joined the New Zealand Navy and helped bring one of six frigates to New Zealand, arriving in Auckland in the early days of January 1949.

That decision changed everything.

While on shore leave in New Zealand, he happened to visit a farming community where he met my mother.

A redheaded, feisty firebrand. 

He never recovered.

For the next sixty-six years he remained a man deeply and completely in love.

Mum and Dad met around a piano.

In many ways, my brothers and I became the notes that followed. Their melodies became our childhood. Their harmonies became our home.

It was not long before they gave birth to the boys and the girl who features so often here on PR.

In fact, The PR Blog itself owes its existence to my father. His initials were Paul Raymond. PR was born from those initials and from the values he embodied: family, loyalty, hard work and love of country.

He was a real man.

Not some modern, sanitised, carefully packaged version of manhood.

A real one.

I remember being about sixteen years old and attending old-fashioned dance classes where we learned waltzes and foxtrots. One evening a thoroughly respectable young fellow with a job, a car and a face full of pimples decided he would like to ask me out.

I told him not to meet my father.

He ignored my advice.

Dad greeted him.

With a shovel.

To this day I have never seen a red Triumph Herald reverse quite so quickly.

I can still picture Dad chasing that car down the laneway before returning home and declaring:

"I don't care what you say. He wore winklepicker shoes. And I don't like pointy shoes."

That was the end of that young man.

I never saw him again.

Dad had spoken.

Looking back, I realise fathers often do things without overthinking them. They act from instinct. They react from love.

My father never acted from cruelty.

He acted from his heart.

Today, fathers are often discouraged from being exactly what they naturally want to be: protectors, providers, carers and guardians.

That is a loss.

Because when men are allowed to be men, people like my Dad enrich the lives of everyone around them.

As a daughter, I have never wanted less of that. I have always wanted more.

Bring on the shovel.

Yet for all the serious things my father did in life, the military service, the migration, the hard work and the responsibilities, families rarely remember people through their greatest achievements.

We remember them through stories.

And perhaps no story captures my father quite so perfectly as the day he was abandoned on White Island.

Back in December 2019, White Island became known around the world following its tragic eruption. My heart went out to all those caught in that terrible event.

But whenever I think of White Island, another memory comes to mind.

Around 1975, Mum, Dad and my uncle headed out on a fishing trip.

Now, anyone who knows fishermen understands that a fishing trip is a sacred undertaking.

Unfortunately, several hours into the expedition, Dad chose that particular day to suffer an attack of kidney stones.

This was regarded by the other two people on the boat as deeply inconsiderate.

After all, the trip had been planned for some time.

The fishing was good.

The weather was pleasant.

And there was no need for such unnecessary drama.

As Dad doubled over in agony, groaning and clutching himself, a practical solution presented itself.

There were really only two options.

One option was to return to Whakatane and seek medical treatment.

The other was to dump him on White Island and continue fishing.

The second option was clearly preferable.

So ashore he went.

My father, who could not swim, was deposited on an active volcanic island some fifty kilometres from shore and left there for the afternoon while Mum and her brother continued their fishing expedition in peace.

Any keen fisherman would understand.

The fish were biting.

As evening approached they returned to collect him.

By this point Dad somehow managed to wade back through the surf and clamber aboard the boat despite being in extraordinary pain.

There are conflicting accounts about exactly what he said.

Some suggest he may have pleaded for drugs and immediate medical attention.

Others maintain that he cheerfully asked how many fish had been caught.

Mum always insisted it was the latter.

As they headed back to Whakatane, he was informed what a pity it was that he had spent the afternoon merely lying on a beach instead of enjoying himself properly.

Perhaps, they suggested, a good book would have improved the experience.

Anyone who has suffered kidney stones will understand that there are few circumstances less appealing than being stranded on White Island in agony.

Except perhaps being stranded on White Island in agony without a book.

The footnote to this story is equally important.

Dad was eventually dropped at the hospital.

Mum and her brother went home and enjoyed a lovely fish dinner.

Looking back now, I realise that story was never really about fishing, kidney stones or White Island.

It was about a generation. A generation that endured.

Men who survived Depression childhoods, war, illness, migration, hard work and family responsibilities without making themselves the centre of attention.

My father belonged to that generation. 

He left school at fourteen. He served his country. He crossed oceans.

He built a life in a new land. He loved one woman for sixty-six years. He moved to Australia with Mum and they spent many happy years in Queensland befor his passing. 

He raised a family who still laugh at the stories he left behind. He gave us security. He gave us laughter. He gave us memories. He has us sayings that only we understand. Terminologies that no one outside of our family would comprehend. 

He gave us an example.

And if I close my eyes, I can still hear his voice.

Happy 100th Birthday, Dad.

I miss you.