Anthony Hunt
Transcription from recorded interview
Deeply, Madly in Love, All their Lives
Right, I think one of the early memories is, it would be Sunday and it was probably every Sunday, when I was a kid, very very little, must’ve been, oh, up to the age of 10. And my Dad and his brother, Uncle John, who was shaped like a Big Capital D, they’d go down to The Farmer’s Arms and they’d go for a lunchtime pint and the memory I have is being in my living room…me and my sister, Karen, who’s two years younger than I am, my Mum was in the kitchen…
It was the sort of house, at the period of time, when you had a standard lamp, which was wooden, sort of mahogany brown colour with a lampshade on and that’s the only thing I can remember in the living room…
…but there’s a smell of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and the noise of the kitchen and sort of slightly steamed windows and at some point, on Sunday afternoon, my Dad would come back – it would probably be, I don’t know, 2’oclock or something – a little bit…slightly merry, but happy merry.
…and the memory I have is that sense memory of the smell of the cooking and the radio being on and Mum probably singing and me and my sister rolling around my Dad on the sofa and you had the smell of pub, of umm, of like tobacco, pub smell and the smell of beer and he was happy and it’s such a massively wonderful memory… a very very strong strong sense memory. Yea, it’s lovely…
You talked a lot about your Dad’s hands…
Yea…like spades, they were huge, the biggest hands I’ve ever seen on anybody…
He would literally use them as hammers, literally.
A good, solid, honest, good man. Really good man.
Him and my Mum, just deeply, madly in love, all their lives…
Sue Andrews
Written By Sue
Newly Baked Bread
I’ve many lovely memories of my dad – he was definitely not a Grandgrind – he’d be firmly with the circus!
The earliest and most enduring memory of him though is brought to me every time I smell newly baked bread. He was a baker and for me as a very young child, his return home from work every day was accompanied by that comforting smell of fresh bread.
Rudyard Kipling said, “Smells are surer than sounds or sights to make your heartstrings crack” (and mine still do.)
Darren Kuppan
Transcription from recording
Ballroom Dancing In The Front Room
One of my earliest memories is going to Martial Arts, with my Dad. He’s kind of like my hero – obviously he can’t do the “fly kicks” and “roundhouse kicks” that he used to do back then. But, I just remember being part of this team, with my Dad involved…I really, really, looked up to him…I was part of this family, as well, who taught discipline and respect. I kept up with Martial Arts actually, because of that…and I also enjoy punching and kicking things!
I had a lot of energy as a child and I think (my parents) put me into everything they could, just so I could expend that energy in any way, sh
ape or form to be honest…
Another memory, (which, I think might be the reason I don’t like seafood), is: my Mum and Dad are from Mauritius and seafood is a huge thing in Mauritius: octopus, lobster, crabs. And when I was little, we used to get these big octopuses or these big lobsters and crabs and my Dad used to come up to me – (and they all used to do it, because they knew I’d start crying straight away) – and they’d come and they’d go:
“Dareeeeen”
and I’d go
“yea?”
And they’d come round the door and there’d be this octopus with it’s tentacles like that – (Darren demonstrates with his hands) – and I’d leg it upstairs quickly or I’d run and hide and they’d literally follow me and they found it hilarious! I was in tears and I think it actually scarred me as a child because now I don’t really like seafood and I think a massive part of that, is because whenever I think of seafood, I get frightened…oh and I’m not keen on the taste either!
(I am giggling, very unhelpfully and unsympathetically. Sorry Darren!)
A recent memory of my Mum and Dad is of them ballroom dancing in the front room. (I started ballroom dancing when I was very, very, young and I stopped when I was about 16). About 5 years ago, Mum and Dad decided to start lessons.
I literally get my moves from my Mum: she is the first person on the dance floor and the last person off and that is exactly what I’m like. Even now: I don’t understand how she moves the way she does – she literally dances 20 year olds off the floor…and I think that’s where I get it from…I love it, when I go out that’s all I wanna do, everyone’s like:
“Where’s Darren?”
“Oh, he’s busting some moves on the dance floor” –
She’s got a lovely voice as well, actually.
I get my rhythm and my moves from my Mum.
And my Dad: he was like a Mum and a Dad, to be honest. He’s such a mean cook and growing up I just used to watch him. He’s got lots of skills that you kind of take for granted when you’re a kid and you just look back and think: “God, that really, really shaped me as a child growing up”. He’s very respectful of people, everyone seems to love him, nobody’s got a bad word to say about him and that’s really lovely to hear, from other people, about your parents.
They’ve moved to Mauritius and I miss them a lot now…When you’re parents get older, it’s just that thing, it’s almost like the child and parent seem to switch and it kind of flips the other way round: my parents are like the kids and we’re like the adults – it cracks me up.
They’re coming to my wedding in a couple of months so I’ll get to see them….
Paul Barnhill
Written By Paul
Safe with my Granddad
Memories of my Granddad. Alfred Hickford.
I was raised by my grandparents for a few years and had the most wonderful benefits of being around older ideas, sights and sounds from watching Laurel and Hardy movies, to being taught some morse code, listening to the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, drinking ginger ale and eating chocolate on a Friday night and hearing stories of the plight of the 33 RAF Squadron in Crete during the war. Three strong memories among hundreds are:
The first was being swung on a swing in his garage hung from bolts in the roof. I would’ve been maybe two. The great thing abo
ut this swing was that it could be used in all weathers. He would move his car and hang it up. He would swing me for hours constantly singing nursery rhymes to me as he patiently pushed me, smells of nana’s stew coming from the kitchen door which opened out into the small back garden. The garage became my own amusement park.
The second very strong early memory I have is always being sat on his push lawnmower as he tackled the garden. I loved it. My feet danglin
g, I must have been tiny, the smell of freshly cut grass, with the motion of the mower and the sound of the blade. I’m sure he must have been told off for safety reasons but maybe not. I was on my own magic machine, all smells and movement, safe with my granddad. We always did that together until I got too big. Love to do it now.
The last moment was a glimpse of his hidden past life. I was in my early 30s now, he must have been 80, sat at a table in a pub having a meal for our birthdays (I was born on his birthday). As the main course arrived and the rest of the family were eating and chatting he suddenly looked at me and said “There were lots of them in the trees you know’.
I paused a second and asked him what he meant, thinking I’d misheard him.
“Lots of what granddad?
“Men hanging there with no legs”. He said casually. “Parachutes caught them in the trees, their legs shot off on the way down, just screaming and some dead”.
He never mentioned it again. My mother and auntie and nana never had heard him him mention it ever. Something that day must have let him share it with me.
The meal then carried on, only I heard and never forgot the image.
He gave me my first acting wage. £5 to learn Kiplings poem IF when I was 11.
I was given his last words. ‘Give me a kiss’. He was a massive figure in my life.
Suzanne Ahmet
Written By Suzanne
Bubs
My Dad was a grafter. Never afraid of hard work or getting his hands dirty. My Uncle Sarko (Dad’s Brother–In –Law), told me the first time my Dad walked into our Pitta Bread factory, he was all biceps, flairs and confidence – John Travolta style!
The thing is, I don’t think I ever really knew my Dad, until he moved to Kyrenia, in North Cyprus, after he’d retired.
When I was growing up, he was often knackered. He’d come downstairs on a Sunday: red eyes, black crevices in his thick, strong fingers but shaved, in his tracky bottoms and slippers and ready to pass out on the sofa. We didn’t get much space to enjoy him as kids, but we knew that he was working for us, to put food on the table, pay the mortgage and give us opportunities in life that he never had.
And the same goes for my incredible Mum. I’m so proud to be their daughter.
There are perhaps 3 moments when my Baba, (Dad, in Turkish) or Bubs (mine and my brother’s creation!) – was revealed to me.
Once when he made a special trip to The New Vic, to see me in Arabian Nights and an Off Rock Gig!! And, two extra special trips when I went to see him in North Cyprus.
Surrounded by his huge family and school friends, he just bloomed and glowed. He took me to childhood haunts and to the house that he and his siblings built with their own hands out of mud bricks. In and out of each other’s homes, food always on the go, Turkish coffee constantly on the stove. I played cards and drank beer with his buddies, got pretty giddy on Raki (bit like Tequila) with my cousins and drove to the tip of the island with The Two Ahmets (his school friends).
Every morning, me and Bubs would sit in his garden and have breakfast: he’d slice a melon from his garden, crack open the halloumi and the olives and we’d have a feast with the local stray cats who became permanent fixtures, with names, by the time I left.
One afternoon, we were chilling with a couple of beers and we saw a robin, dancing around his patio and he turned to me and said: “It’s at times like this, that I know God loves me”.
Whilst he took an afternoon siesta one day, I was sat in his beloved garden and I had this strong sense that he wouldn’t be with us much longer and I knew to breathe in as much of him as I possibly could, in the time we had left.
I know my Dad loves me and that feeling can never, ever be erased.
The picture I’ve posted here is of Bubs, (on the left) and his brother-in-law, Sarkis (on the right). One Turkish Cypriot, the other Greek/Armenian Cypriot: they worked side by side for some 25 years at the Pitta Bread Factory. Both of them, at separate moments, said to me that they felt like brothers and nothing less. I am so proud to be part of their legacy and hope they both know how much they are loved.
