Dad

Never really knew my father. I only know dad’s birthday, because its printed on my birth certificate. He was a Bin man (and from conversations I remember, a bit sexist, and a bit of a bigot).

He died when I was 13, but but my parents separated when I was 4, and I was 7 years old, the last time I saw him to speak to.

Made me think though. There isn’t anything left to remember my father, apart from me.

When I was 5, my dad bought me a train set (the Hornby 125. £19.99 at the time, the best train-set that money could buy). My mum thought I was too young, so didn’t give it to me, until I was 12. When we opened the box on Christmas day, we realized that it needed a transformer (another £12, and money was tight then).

6 weeks later, once we had the transformer, I realized after years in sitting its the box, that the train didn’t actually work.

Not sure what happened, but I imagine it was sold in one of the many Crown Point housing estate jumble sales.

I’ve replaced the train set (state of the art track and power, used for my Euro-Star set, plus 2 125 trains I purchased on ebay).

I’m not overly sentimental, but someone has to remember my dad.

Each year on his birthday, I’m going to assemble the train set, and run it around the track a couple of times.

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