The memory is the earliest one I have of me and my Dad. I was very small indeed, I’m not exactly sure how old, but I’d guess about three years old, maybe even younger. My Dad was not a particularly tall or strong man, but I was small enough, and by comparison, he was big enough then, for me to stand with both my feet on one of his, and to reach up with my arms and cling onto his leg. I would then hang on and laugh delightedly as he tried to go about his daily business, walking around the house with me gripping on tightly refusing to be budged. It was a favorite game.

I don’t know that I can honestly say it affected me in my life. However, in my family, we don’t really talk about things very much or do a lot together. We don’t live particularly close to one another so we see each other rather infrequently. I suppose the way the incident affected me was by making me at a subconscious level feel close to my Dad even years later as we had shared that happy play time together when I was tiny.

I didn’t know I had held onto this memory until quite recently. Sadly my Dad passed away, he had been very ill for a long time, so it wasn’t unexpected, but of course it was very sad. I wanted to say something about him at his funeral, and I wanted to pick a memory that was personal just to him and to me. For some reason that image of me tiny and laughing and him solemnly ‘pretending’ that he hadn’t noticed I was there came into my mind and it seemed very appropriate somehow to share that one. It was a happy memory, but also an intimate one. I think he would have been really pleased that I could recall it so many decades later.