My father was a very private man. If he had something difficult to say, his medium was to write about it. When he was seven – the age at which we first start to realise what we are going to be – he said wanted to be a comedian, and perhaps throughout life a comedian is exactly what he was. As an English teacher he helped people discover that, if you had something complex or difficult to say, comedy was the best medium to use. Since his death, the tributes from former pupils reference his dry wit in the classroom. But his stage was not just the classroom but wherever he went – at every opportunity with family and friends he would make comic observations – or just dreadful jokes.
For the induction of a new minister at Pitlochry Baptist Church his comic observations describing the personal characteristics of each member of the congregation seemingly raised the roof of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, but when I asked about this event he brushed it off as ‘an easy audience to please’. He was similarly reticent discussing the time he spent with literary dignitaries at the Hawthornden literary retreat as part of his national prize for his poem “Letter of Resignation” – yet for someone who had a passion for crime novels receiving a written published accolade from Ian Rankine as one of Scotland’s top crime writers must have been a moment of immense pride.
He also liked competitive sport. Everywhere he went he started up a table tennis team. At one stage in Dumbarton he had two Keil School teams competing in West of Scotland table tennis leagues but in later years he focused on tennis. Right up until his final days his daily scrabble games continued to be played with that sharp competitive edge – including feeling he had let himself down if he did not manage a seven letter word in every game.
The poet’s skill is to say in three words more accurately what everyone else need a paragraph to say. I think my dad described his personal platform best in his poem Ecclesiastes. Perhaps the best tribute I can give him is to repeat these words back to him – thank you for being there and dropping a few wry comments in the ears of all of us.
