Whether he was enjoying my mother’s Sunday lunch, taking the dog for a walk with his stout thumb stick, landing a plump salmon or going for a drink with his friends my father was a man with a serious appetite for life.
Private about his innermost feelings and his early years in Ireland, Dad was passionately committed to the hear and now. Beyond my mother his first love was music and it is my suspicion that it was melody as much as blood that ran in his veins.
I remember his excitement when, by borrowing the Mikado from Swansea’s record library, he first brought Gilbert and Sullivan into the house. Hardly hi-fi on my orange Dansette but Dad loved every scratchy note of it. In fact I’m not sure that somewhere early on he didn’t explain to me that being a musician was the best thing a man could do.
I think deep down that’s what dad was - a very fine musician. Albeit one who never played a note. He had the passion after all, whether it be for classical or opera. He had the intelligence, the dexterity and the sensitivity to have mastered any instrument. I know he had the impulse to play because at the age of 60 for a short time he took piano lessons.
Although Dad was a fisherman his interest in the countryside extended well beyond sport. When the trout wouldn’t take a fly he would while away his riverbank hours identifying the birds into whose domain he had trespassed. As a child on the Brecon Beacons I remember him showing me a curlew chick held in the palm of his hand.
It wasn’t just the bird life that he enjoyed. I think he may have seen god in all of nature. On returning in the early hours one night after fishing he woke me to show me a glow worm he had brought home in a jam jar from some Carmarthenshire hedgerow. I’ll never forget the intensity of the light burning into my sleep sodden eyes. Or the intensity of my father’s enthusiasm as he displayed his find.
He was a gregarious man, loving people and social interaction. In recent days I’ve been stunned by the number of my own contemporaries who’ve told me how much they’d enjoyed his company over the years. He’d come alive in conversation. I remember at my parents’ 50th anniversary party this otherwise staid octogenarian gent skipping around like a robin as he shared a pithy comment with one guest or dropped a bon mot on another.
William Joseph Ellis was very much a self educated man. As I grew to understand him more he regularly impressed me with his knowledge of English Literature. He loved words almost as much as he loved music, savoring the sounds as they left his mouth as another might savor a fine wine. He would often have an appropriate Shakespearean quote ready but was always reticent about it, as if he didn’t want to appear to be flaunting a knowledge to which he was, in some way, not entitled. So I guess he had humility too.
Intellectually astute he avidly followed the cut and thrust of world politics and as a man of the left he avoided dogma and retained a liberal outlook. He focused on the plight of the underdog and supported the political struggle of the ANC and the republican movement in Eire.
Although manifestly non-violent, like so many of his generation he offered his all when he was called to the gun. He had some lucky escapes particularly at the battle of Bir el Gube (pronounced BEER EL GOOBY) but for the most part had what I imagine could be referred to as a good war. Despite admitting that the conflict had left its scars on him he seemed to have enjoyed the comradeship and the travel of his time in the army.
However once he was back on blighty’s rolling shore foreign holidays were completely out of the question. After all once you’ve been shot at and had your tank set on fire in distant lands its only a mug who goes back for more. That would have been my father’s logic.
Latterly his interest turned back to his military experience. He read widely on the various campaigns of the conflict and maintained a cherished bond with his fellow ex-warriors.
My father met his end as a fighter. Against all odds he struggled back from a serious series of medical problems in the autumn and winter of 2005. When it came to his final hour he most definitely did not go gentle. While his body gave up on him his mind and spirit remained strong. He fought with his last ounce of strength and intelligence to stay here with the family he loved.
Blessing for a Journey (Traditional Celtic Blessing)
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields;
And until we meet again, may
God hold you in the palm of his hand.
Do not go Gentle into that Good Night (Dylan Thomas)
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
