Dad appreciation thread…

Name one great thing your Dad did for you, no matter how big or small.

They’re stopping my dad’s meds today.
When I was 9 or 10 he came home from work with a box of T Rex records. Still got them, playing my favourite album now, The Slider (43 years old this album!) Sent me on a lifelong journey of love for music.
And when I’m sad… I slide…

Inspired me to ride a bike – he was a pretty decent road racer. Sadly I have never reached the heights he did!

DezB, thanks for posting this. I said on this forum a couple of weeks ago that I was losing my dad, and received many deeply kind words from forum members. At this very moment, I am sitting at his bedside in the hospice waiting for the end. It is likely just hours away.

I was a keeper in football, and we had lost a game something terrible. Like double digits terrible.

Afterward, in the car, my dad put his hand on the back of my neck and said, ‘It’s okay to cry, you know’, at which point I lost it.

He was a man who allowed me to be myself, and to cry, and to feel, and to express myself. He will be missed beyond words.

They’re stopping my dad’s meds today.

Sorry to hear that Dez – though I guess you all might feel it’s his time

Any dad who brings home a T Rex boxset is OK by me

Mine was very very decent about me being a bit of a **** when I was younger, for which I’ll always be grateful

Mine took me to watch Salford Rugby League. They would let him lift me over the turnstile to get in for free. With my first wage packet I bought us both season tickets.

Will be thinking of you and your dad Dez. 😐

Sorry to hear of your situation. Seems to be a lot of people on here facing similar issues at the moment.

My Dad taught me to do the thing I believed to be right, regardless of what other people do or say or think.

He hasn’t always agreed with what I have chosen to do as a result of his advice, but he made me a much better person than I could have been.

Gave me the freedom to find whatever I wanted to do.
Then encouraged me to do well at it.
Then supported me when I found something else I wanted to do.
And so much more besides.

Basically, enabled me to be, well, me.

Dez, whatever happens, do try and make sure he’s remembered more than he’s missed. 🙁

Cheers guys. The Slider’s had me blubbin! Didn’t appreciate the old man enough in his later years, so good to think of the great things he did for his 3 lads.

DezB; sounds tough. thoughts are with you.

Nothing. He was a c***. My mum was generally awesome though – didn’t realise that for most of the time though.

Thoughts are with you guys above. As a dad myself, I connect with these things far more than before.

My dad is the best dad I could ever ask for hes the type of dad that can literally do anything. No matter what you ask for help with he can always do it. He used to play football with me whenever I asked and we would go on weekend bike rides together. I behaved like a knob one evening and he got quite cross with me and really shouted at me, the next day he came home with a chocolate orange to apologise as he said we should never fall out as we’re just too similar. He would always be the person who would back down first as he knew otherwise the two of us would be too stubborn.

When I was about 9 I had some smoke bombs that I wanted to set off in a phone box. When he found out I thought I was going to get a bollocking. But no, he gave me his camera to take pictures that I still have now some 40 years later.

That and ringing a friend’s mum (after she’d been silly about something) and calling her a miserable old lizard.

RIP dad – 5 yrs 2mths on, still miss you every day.

Drove 200 mile round trip twice a weekend just to let us have the weekends with him, he only once didn’t make it and he spent the weekend in his car snowed in as he wouldn’t turn back trying to get us.

I miss him every day. Losing anyone close to you is so hard.
Thinking of you Dez.

My dad has given me a huge number of things amongst which include …

* my love for cycling
* my love for and ability to do many different practical things
* a lot of support and friendship

Op sorry to hear your news.

Name one great thing your Dad did for you, no matter how big or small.

Trying hard to think of something small. Nope can’t come up with anything. He did plenty of things that he should have been locked up for.

My father is a piece of sh1t and I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire.

My mother is a saint in comparison.

Sorry to hear you are having a rough time.

Nothing ,not one thing*, at all can I think to thank him for, never mind great.

Hard as it is for you today Dez [ and others] at least you will have the memories. Some of us dont even have that

* I promised to not be like him with my kids, does that count?

Sorry to hear that Dez. Thoughts with you.
The best thing Biggles did was just to be there, quietly supporting me in a very unassuming way.
I ring him every day for a quick chat and he still does it to this day.

Offered to pay for an extra year at university when I mucked up the first year. I politely refused as there was no way I could keep up with the subject. Supported me as I went off into food manufacturing.
Nursed my mum through 15 years of decline after she had a brain tumour removed, while working a full time job.
A good demonstrator of the ‘keep moving forward’ approach to life.
He’s rubbish at keeping in touch now he’s remarried and living in France for months at a time but we manage somehow.
All the best Dez.

@Saxonrider I hope your father has a peaceful finish.

Feel for you Dez (and you Saxon).
It’s the hardest of times,but it sounds like your Dads were in the good guys camp .

My Dad gave me a life long love of motorbikes,we had some of our best times together at the TT .
I miss him a lot,but never stop thinking how lucky I was to be his son.

Take care.

Showed me that heroes can be very human – make the tea, lift your spirits, always there when needed. Didn’t dissolve when mum died. Hope I can achieve half of it with my own kids. All the best both.

he puts up with my mother – for that he deserves an OBE or something.

The greatest gift my dad gave to me was his untimely and unexpected death in a freak car accident, when he was just 48 and I, 18.

Many years spent in grief and trying to gain the approval of a dead father have led me to where I am now, knowing that I wouldn’t be the person I am had he lived. Where I am now is the best I have ever been, content, peaceful and grateful for my health and family.

Thank you dad, I love you.

I’m sorry about your dad(s) -dez & Saxonrider.
Not a day goes by when i don’t miss my dad.
When he was a bit pissed, he pretended to play the saxaphone with a beer bottle.Like Zoot from the muppets. 🙂

Given how many of you no longer have your dads, I shall appreciate my folks visiting us this weekend all the more. Dad gave me my love for bikes and a desire to be at least as good a father to my kids as he was to me. If I can achieve that I will have succeeded in life.

I lost my dad to complications after a heart attack quite some years ago for a combination of reasons I was the one who had to consent to the removal of life support . His loss was very hard but time really does make it easier to deal with . What he gave me was the best of everything he had . I recently googled the cost of the Hornby train he gave me one Christmas it must have been a real fortune to him. He always encouraged me to think for myself and argue. He was a difficult man in many ways from a different era he had been a schoolboy evacuee and in the home guard during the war . But he raised us with a real love even if he found it hard to express.
My thoughts are with you at such a difficult time.

Man that sucks, DezB. Hope its as smooth as it can be for him & you.

My dad helped me buy a zx spectrum after I’d managed to save up for about half of it in pocket money. I’m still messing about with computers for a living.

Poignant thread. My thoughts are with you DezB.

This is poignant for me in particular because my dad has frontal lobe dementia and nothing that in the following list are things he will remember:

– When I was 11 years old he took me for my first ‘true’ bike ride. We rode from our house in Poynton, up the road towards Macclesfield. We turned round at the Buctley Ash and came back via Whitley Green

– When I was 12 he took me up to the top of Snowden via Cryb Goch. It was all in cloud and visibility was maybe 15m. I’d not been that scared and excited at the same time before then.

– Throughout our childhood, he would regularly take my brother and I climbing, up to Windgather Rocks or Burbage South.

– He helped form my love and appreciation of music. For my eight birthday he made me ‘mix tapes’ of trad Jazz (Ball, Barber and Bilk), which I loved and a collection of 60s music we’d found as singles in the attic.

– He took my brother and I camping and walking in the Lake District for a week once while our mother did exams for her under grad. I think I would have been ten at the time. We camped in the Langdale Valley, had dinner every night at the Old Dungeon Ghyll then before we went to sleep he would tell us a story of what how he used to spend his weekends in the Lakes with his mates as an 18/19 year old.

– When I was around 14 and my brother 12, he took us for a walk around the whole of the Peak Distric over the course of a week. We walked from YHA to YHA carrying everything we needed. The route was Hayfield to Edale to Hathersage to Eyam to Ravenstor to Buxton to Whalley Bridge.

Thoughts are with you.

My dad always supported me when I was playing sport, biggest critic but also biggest fan. Would travel to every game with us (home and away) whether it was football (where he would stand at the goalpost with me offering advice and support) or rugby where he would run the line or be on the touch – eventually becoming a pretty good defense coach with our local team.

It is nice to read of examples of good parenting – both male and female – on a Friday morning, warms the spirit.

My physique – other than that he is/was a total person you’d see next tuesday and I’d happily sit him on his arse again.

My thoughts to those who are waiting for their Fathers’ demise and also to those who have had to endure a Dad who didn’t fulfill his role.

My Dad is a true Gentle Man who made my Brother and I the centre of his world. Too many things to thank him for but as a Coach Builder he gave me an inate sense of how tight is just right and a load of quality tools he made himself.

I think I’ll be giving him a hug when I see him this weekend.

Dezb and Saxonrider – my heart goes out to you in these difficult times.

My dad gave me the gift of laughter, so many, many times. From the story of him being most upset that his 8th birthday was rather upstaged by it being VE day, to the picture I have of him a few years ago when he’d been told that his battle with cancer was over – he caught me trying to take a sneaky photo of him on a sunny day and ficked me the V’s with a big grin on his face.

Name one great thing your Dad did for you, no matter how big or small.

That’s a challenge.

Edit: Oh yeah – donated some sperm.

My Dad took me to the last few Apollo Space launches in Cape Cenaveral.. We lived in Fort Lauderdale at the time and I guess we were lucky in that respect, but at that time he worked away a lot and always flew back to pick me up for the long drive north to a beach overlooking the launches. I was very young and only really felt the impact of the events much later on in life.

I have never forgotten those trips to this day.

He’s passed on now and IIRC I only once thanked him for doing that for me. 😕

My Dad taught me how to fix things. He was a proper ‘Don’t worry, Dad will fix it’ character. He could fix anything from bikes, vehicles, plumbing, electrics, building work, garden stuff despite having no training or qualifications in any of it. Now I am that person to my family, I am slowly becoming my Dad for which I am extremely proud

I lost my dad 24 years ago, and not a day goes by without me thinking fond thoughts.

I still miss him, and it’s taken me a long time to realise that this is not something to be “got over”, but is part of his legacy.

And reading these has still raised the dust here…

Will be thinking of you, OP.

He was my first hero I guess and would do absolutely anything for me, my Mom and my brother. He worked (and still does at 65) astonishingly hard at whatever he does and is generally the glue that holds the family together. He’s not quite my best mate, that’s my brother, but he’s pretty bloody close, my friends, 30 years his junior, also consider him a friend and will meet him without me having to me there. Gave me my love of sport too, he is/was a goalkeeper like me and played at Wembley twice, he played his last game of semi-pro football at 50 and was still helping out my Sunday league team in his 60’s. And he rode Brum to Oxford 3 months after a total knee replacement.

He’s a bit of a legend really.

This may sound pompous but I’m going to write it anyway.
I have been very fortunate to have my father as a role model in so many areas. He is an extraordinarily gentle man with a steel backbone who with my mother engendered all the values I hold to be important. They celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary this year.

If I had to pin down one thing, it was teaching me to love using tools properly and making things with them.

I love my Dad

he had faith in me, even after I let him down (on numerous occasions). Lucky enough to pay him back in the end. I miss him a lot.

Read this last night but didn’t post, as i couldn’t think of anything suitable to add, and i was too busy anyway. Too busy texting my old man (it was late) thanking him for some (more) sage advice that he’d given me two nights previously, before a difficult board meeting. But not really thanking him for THAT, but more to thank him for just being my Dad, because I don’t thank him enough. But him and me are not good at that, and we need a peg to hang a compliment on.

He’s done so much for me over the years i can’t list it, but one sticks in my mind. I guess I was about 11 or 12, a decent (county rep) goalkeeper and like others above he took me everywhere to play in games, get coaching, etc. One (unimportant) school game, there was a real goalmouth scramble and I as GK hacked the ball clear with my feet, it went to an opponent on the edge of the area and he whcked it back in. As the ball went back to the centre he asked why i didn’t dive on it. Because i might get hurt, and it wasn’t an important game anyway.

What followed was a real shock as he rarely got angry and never swore, but he had true fury in his eyes as he tore me off a strip about irrespective of whether it was a school game or a cup final, you always do things properly. Finishing with ‘I don’t do all this for you to behave like a ***ing fairy’

Still rings true now. In sport and in life, if it’s the right thing to do you dive on the ball. And in sport and in life, i’ve got kicked and trodden on plenty of times as a result. But i did it right, didn’t i Dad?

For those of you with dads that didn’t make the grade, i’m sorry. For those of you with dads that did, but who aren’t with us now, or those that won’t be with us much longer, my thoughts.

Bit dusty here right now.

Dez – have a big round of internet hugs from the P family
xx

DrP