His now withered hand hardly moved and yet I still knew what he meant but it hurt me so to see my Dad once a man so powerfully strong be brought down by a bad heart and by arthritis so cruelly bent.
His last eleven years were all in pain it was plain for all to see he worked all through the second vile war sometimes in long eighteen-hour shifts but he died at only fifty-two in front of my siblings and me.
I will never know how my Mum coped there were six of us to raise and though she struggled, oh how she struggled she fed and clothed us by means It was only much later as an adult that I understood and looked back in praise.