PHOTOGRAPHY, WORDS AND FILM By Neale James
My next door neighbour writes a father’s day card every year, to his late father. He seals the card in an envelope then leaves it by a framed photograph of the great man on his mantelpiece.
I thought about my own late father, his legacy and how his life and involvement in my life has defined me. I haven’t written a father’s day card for twenty three years. Perhaps my first photo essay may seem self-indulgent. But I’d like to share this private and precious collection as my initial missive. On what we keep.
My father.
My father’s name was John.
My father passed in 1997.
He was a devoted family man. He was for the most part, a patient man. He was passionate about my aspirations. He didn’t own a lot of things that I really remember. Yes he had a wardrobe of clothes and books and other trinkets you collect by dint of age, but I remember he had a few particular things, of which have now become my particular things.
The thing I possess that is most valuable is part of a short film. I wish I had collected more of this. It was there in plentiful supply, but only while he lived.
THE FOUNTAIN PEN
My father was given a fountain pen for his 21st birthday in 1955 by his father. It was a ‘Parker 51,’ with a twelve carrot gold cap and capitalised lightly engraved words along the barrel, “TO JOHN ON HIS 21ST FROM DAD.” My father used that fountain pen for writing anything special, such as family greetings cards. And signing cheques. He was reasonably particular about it. I don’t think I was permitted to use it. The Parker lived in the left hand drawer of his beech wood office desk on a blotter next to a bottle of Stephens blue black ink, a permanent ink, the type used by births, deaths and marriages registrars. I still have that small two fluid ounce bottle, though the ink has long since dried. It’s now a green powder at the base, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away. The Parker never left the house. It was always in that drawer. Loading the ink was a procedure he was fastidiously tidy about. I would watch him mindfully vacuum-fill the ink by pump from the bottle, followed by making light test strokes on the backs of envelopes. His signature was an art form to me that I tried to emulate. I never managed.
THE SPIRIT LEVEL & PLIERS
My father was a carpenter, a brick layer, a mechanic, a plumber, an electrician. None of these aforementioned skills were professionally held occupations. He simply came from a generation where fathers did all these things, well the fathers I knew anyway. I come from a generation where I pay for a carpenter, a brick layer, a mechanic, a plumber and an electrician. I am all the poorer for it, not merely fiscally, but in terms of life latitude. My father’s father was similar. Grandfather had a garage at the foot of his garden with an excavated pit so he could service his commercial Austin van, drop the sump and so forth. The pit was covered with thick oak planks for safety and I remember this dank dimly lit place smelling like a true mechanic’s environment; Parfum de Grease. My father owned a dark blue steel toolbox that if I imagine hard enough I can, like grandfather’s garage space, still smell. The tools were all many decades old, even when I was young. They were cared for, treated well, oiled if required and each had its own compartment in that blue steel toolbox. The pliers feel like they mysteriously belong in my hand. They always feel warm, somehow. They sat snugly in the top tray of his toolbox alongside a spirit level. I still use both tools. The diagonal and horizontal vials still display their bubbles. All is still in order. I estimate them to be sixty, perhaps seventy years old. Maybe more.
THE WALLET
My father was mindful of money. He made his purchasing and financial decisions carefully. For as long as I remember, he had one wallet, a hand stitched chocolate brown soft leather bifold with a secret not-so-secret full length compartment entered by poppers that have since began to corrode. It is a timestamped wallet, by design. The pockets are made for sterling notes of a larger size to those in circulation now and though there is a smaller front compartment, nothing is made to securely grip a credit card, whilst my own wallet conversely is practically designed around housing as much ‘plastic’ as possible. I never saw my father worry about money even during a period where we seemingly had none. Recession had taken some investment decisions my father had made to the brink of personal financial collapse, yet you would not necessarily know it by his steadfast calm. Perhaps his wallet was magic, for even at this time, it would always have notes within it.
THE CASSETTE
My father loved music. He, much I think to my embarrassment would be the first to sing at a party. He introduced me to Paul McCartney and Wings, in particular this album; Band on the Run. For me, it is that album. I hope to meet Paul before he ‘retires,’ so that this story is somehow completed, if only in my romanticised mind. This cassette is the original one he bought upon its release in 1973. It’s now forty seven years of age and I’m too afraid to play it. Opening the cassette card a message reveals a further sign of the times promising; ‘This stereo “Musicasette” also gives genuine monaural reproduction.’ The cassette was last played by my father when he was still alive and is either two thirds through side one, on the track Bluebird. Or a third through side two, Picasso’s Last Words (drink to me), which would seem more appropriate since everyone without exception it seemed on the day of his funeral suggested he’d always been the life and soul of every party. The title track has been the soundtrack of my life. When I worked in radio, it started and ended every run I had at a radio station, much to the aggravation of every head of music I served under. I’m not sure it was on any of their playlists.
THE PHOTOGRAPH
My father kept this picture within his wallet. It was made on the evening he proposed to my mother. It was taken at the back of my mother’s parents’ tobacconist shop in the lean-to that doubled as a barber’s shop. Tobacco and Fry’s Chocolate out front, barbering out back. Grandad was a shrewd businessman. Legend has it that he didn’t trust banks and never kept an account. All his money and shop takings were stored under an unfashionably high bed in a spare room on the first floor above the tobacco store. I’m not sure how true that is, but I want to believe it. The picture belongs in his wallet. I’ll make sure it returns right after this photograph, of the photograph.
THE VOICE
My father had the warmest greeting of any man I have known. I’ll let you into a secret. My legal first name isn’t Neale. This will confuse you. It’s James, or more specifically Jamie, to my father. I concur, put the names together and I’m a proper cabaret headliner. Neale is however my middle name. It’s a long story. For all my life he would greet me with a cheerful; “Hello Jamie,” or “Here he is!” I haven’t heard him say those words for two decades, but they remain large in my imagination and I’ve dreamed them from time to time during the night. We collect pictures of our loved ones by the hundreds in photo wallets, albums and on digitally combustible hard drives. I have many pictures of my father. Many. But, we did not own a cine camera and dad died before smart phones sported cameras. I do not have his voice. I miss his voice, terribly. I miss his timbre. I miss his spirit. For a while my mother kept his voice on the cassette ansaphone machine. Then one day she recorded over it. The message changed and he’d gone. I used to phone that machine when I knew my mother was out, just to hear him. I do however have this rather short, awkward recording of him, a few months before he was suddenly taken from all our lives. I was presenting a radio breakfast show. We phoned him on air to wish him a happy birthday. Forgive my excitable demeanour. I think I sound ridiculous. What I really wanted to say, what I really should have said was, what I imagine myself saying is; “Dad, happy birthday. Sorry for the daft things I did. Thank you for the daft things though that you did. And could you just speak some more. Without me interrupting. Maybe for an hour or two, or three. So I can have more of you. Forever.”
What we keep.
