Saturday, 20 January 2007

Jackie and I were woken at 3:50 am by the telephone. It was the hospital: Dad’s blood pressure had again fallen again, and we might like to come and sit with him. Jackie and I quickly dressed and again we rushed to the Dad’s bedside. We met Mum and Jez there, all of us prepared for the worst.

We sat around his bed trying to communicate to him our deep love and affection. After an hour, his condition had stabilised somewhat and we realised that we had to organise a round-the-clock vigil to ensure that someone was with Dad at all times. Mum and Jez took the first shift and at 5:30 am Jackie and I went home to grab some sleep.

We didn’t sleep of course, but we did get to recharge our batteries a bit. At 8:00 am we prepared to leave. I called my Bobby (son) in Brighton to let him know what was happening. And I called Nancy (daughter) in Southend to let her know I wouldn’t be over to see her today. Both of course were very sad.

By 9:00 am Jackie and I were back at the Lister Hospital. The nursing staff had given Dad a bed bath and cleaned him up a bit; he looked very good with his pure white hair and beard, but the oxygen mask and the tubes and drips told a different story.

Still, it was hard not to think that he had rallied a bit. His breathing was still regular, and he just looked so relaxed. Jackie and I tried to wake him, although without any real conviction. I think I tried to tell him something about working at WCVS. Then Jackie suggested I read to him, so for an hour or so I held his hand a read him a chapter about the cryptographic origin of the claims that Francis Bacon had written Shakespeare’s plays: just the sort of thing Dad liked.

After my voice faltered, I just held his hand and reflected on his life, his strengths, and my many fond memories of him. He was passionate about history and for many years was active in the Hertfordshire Local History Society, editing their magazine and publishing several books. Even in the past year (his third year coping with Alzheimer’s) he wrote a paper on Willian village and presented it to the Hertfordshire Villages Study Group. He also researched our family history, many many years before the internet made this common and easy: he’d done it the hard way by visiting record offices throughout the country.

He belonged to that giant, heroic generation that survived the Great Depression, defeated Nazism and built the Welfare State. Dad spent the war as a Fleet Air Arm navigator on Swordfishes protecting the North Atlantic convoys. After the war he joined the library service. He strongly believed in liberalism, education, politeness, the welfare state, and internationalism (when he moved house recently, he was childishly delighted to discover that two of his new neighbours were originally from India and China).

Dad also loved good food and good company. A week ago, when he arrived at the Lister Hospital in an ambulance, a nurse asked him if he wanted a cup of tea or a glass of water. “No thank you”, he replied, “I’d like a glass of sweet sherry.”

But as I sat holding his hand, all I could really think was that he was a wonderful father and role model and I loved him very much.

About 11:30, his breathing suddenly quickened and became more urgent, and his eyelid flickered. At the same time, I heard my Mum’s voice as she arrived on the ward. Maybe Dad had heard her too? Mum took his hand and spoke to him. A kind-faced and soft-spoken doctor came to perform some checks and he said he thought the end was very close.

We were left alone, all holding each other's hands, all crying, and occasionally reassuring Dad how much he was loved. I remember thinking that by his standards he had lived a near-perfect life, and that now by his standards he was dying a near-perfect death: gently, surrounded by his family in a NHS hospital in his beloved Hertforshire.

His breathing slowed, and became shallower and more relaxed. He showed no sign of any pain or stress, and he seemed perfectly relaxed as his breathing slowed and slowed. Then for a minute or so, he breathed only irregularly, in quiet gasps. But still he seemed to be perfectly in control of things.

And then, just before midday, it was all over.