Andrew Kay: Yak Yak Yak

A Fishy Tale

I am getting rather philosophical about Christmas this year. The last few have been okay but sad. My father passed away nearly three years ago now. It hardly seems possible that a man so prominent in my life is no longer with us and Christmas certainly reminds me of this.
Dad was no ordinary man – he was no saint either. He had a fiery temper when roused, in very stark contrast to his gentler nature.
His potential was initially thwarted. His father died when he was a young boy and his mother remarried. Joe was a nice enough man but unambitious, his mother had very fixed ideas and, despite obvious artistic talent, would not entertain the idea of dad going to art school. How that would have changed his life.
Instead she organised for him to be taken on at the head office of Beechams in St Helens, a clerical job that would have killed him.
In anger he set off on his bicycle and rode around the streets of town. There he spotted a stone mason carving an angel for a tomb stone. Fascinated he asked a few questions and enquired if they were taking on apprentices. The reply was no, but that a Wigan firm were. Wigan is a fair schlepp from St Helens but not for a keen cyclist on a mission.
He arrived unannounced and asked to see the boss. Immediately they set him a test, cutting two circular pieces of stone with circular openings. He did it and was offered an apprenticeship on the spot which he signed up for before returning home with the news. Doris was furious, she had bought the suit and shirts from the tally man in readiness.

All this is starting to sound like a Catherine Cookson novel and it certainly was. Dad had moved out when his mother re-married to live with his gran and aunty Nellie. Nellie was an excellent singer and often was asked to sing soprano solos at local weddings. On one occasion she was half way through ‘Ave Maria’ when her top set of dentures slipped and jammed. The vicar had to rush her into the vestry where he managed to dislodge them with a screwdriver. Catherine Cookson lurches full on into Alan Bennett territory here.
Back to the story, and not just a hint of Jude The Obscure, as dad, fully apprenticed moves on into the world of letter cutting and angel carving. He loved the creative nature of his work and he was so very good at this. His figures were beautiful, his letters so well formed – but the money was rotten and by the time I was on the way he needed to find something better.
The answer was industry and a job that was miserable, hard and not without danger. Pilkington Glass was the biggest employer in town and he built the tanks in which the glass was made. Creative it was not but it did give him the chance to travel the world and on his travels he discovered yoga. Yes he was a yoga fanatic almost to the very end and for many years belonged to the British Wheel Of Yoga and taught classes. Almost to the very end he could be found in tangled knots around the house, fitness and remaining supple were so very important to him that when he was stricken with arthritis it was a very cruel blow.
Industry was no less cruel, the job made him prematurely deaf as well as creatively frustrated and in the end he left to do work with youngsters who were finding it hard to find employment for a variety of reasons. I think he was good at that but once again it did not allow him to vent his creativity in any kind of meaningful way. He needed change.

It came out of the blue, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral needed masons. He applied and got the job. As he would say, he was back on the tools, and he loved it. But it was a limited job, the cathedral was nearly complete.
Having lived in St Helens all their lives the next job took them over to Lincoln to work on another great cathedral where he rebuilt some very major and important parts of that ancient building.
Next move was to Hay-on-Wye and a company that specialised in restoring ancient buildings, and finally to Somerset and Wells cathedral where he perhaps cut some of his most impressive stone.
His work can be seen across the world but never with his name visible. An unsung artist in every sense of the word.
At the end he was but a shell of his former, beautiful self. I went to spend a few days at his bedside when he was finally taken to hospital in Exeter. I will forever hate that city. On my final visit he lay there holding as tightly as he could to my hand. From time to time he would open his eyes and smile and at those fleeting moments I knew that he recognised that it was me.
His last words to me were so sad and so poignant. I will share them: “Can you believe it, can you believe that they let an architect build a hospital with huge fishtanks over each bed. I was kept awake all night by bloody flying fish – leaping from one tank to another. Bloody ridiculous!” He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
That night I had to return to Brighton and the next night he slipped away. Was it the morphine or his legendary sense of humour?
I hang on to the latter.