Michael Simmons

Remembering our Father

As we think back on the life of our father, uncle, grandfather, and great-grandfather, it’s
easy to recall the things that he loved.

First, he loved our mother. The story goes that he admired our mother but she was
dating somebody else at the time. When our mother’s gentleman friend went off to do
his national service, our father stepped in; interestingly, the boyfriend in question did not
bear a grudge and stayed in contact with our father until fairly recently. After they
became a couple our parents were seldom apart and loved to do things together. For
many years they did volunteer work together at St. Bridget’s Cheshire home, and they
performed together in light opera societies. People always talked about Pam and
Michael as a unit, although apparently they would have preferred to be Mike and
Pamela. It was a sadness to him in the last years of our mother’s life that she was less
able to share equally in the things they both enjoyed.

And our father loved his family. He was a truly good son and brother, caring for his
parents and sister Hilary to the very end. And he loved and was proud of his four
children, eleven grandchildren, and ten great grandchildren. He was especially fond of
little girls—and little boys when they weren’t breaking his greenhouse windows--and in
recent years visits from his great grandchildren were one of his greatest pleasures.
He was expert at maths and finances and liked his work in banking most of the time,
especially, I think, at the Rustington Midland Bank. But he loved to go on holiday, even
in earlier years when money and time were short. Holiday lunches on wet days
involved the rest of us sitting in the car and our father in the rain heating up soup on a
primus stove. In retrospect, towing a caravan over the Alps with a Hillman Super Minx
may have been a little ambitious, but he managed to do it. More recently, my parents
enjoyed traveling with their sisters and with friends, and although most of the thousands
of photographs they took were terrible, it was still easy to see what a good time all had.
Anyone who knew our father has to be aware that he loved to joke. He had a gentle
humour and a deadpan delivery that sometimes caught people unawares. When
Frances and I were about 6 and 4 respectively we were playing outside our auntie’s
house and Frances managed to drop a Victorian kitchen sink on her foot. When my
father brought her back from accident and emergency he said, “And do you know, there
were 103 children in the hospital today who’d dropped sinks on their foot?” I was
sufficiently surprised by this always to remember it, and it was only years later that I
realized that he was joking.

Our father also loved sports and was quite good at them, a gene he failed to pass on to
any of his daughters. As a Selhurst Grammar School boy who was married at
Holmsdale Baptist church, he could not be anything other than a Crystal Palace
supporter and on a Saturday he never missed Final Score. He was always happy to
watch sports on television, especially football, cricket, and snooker.

There are many other things our father enjoyed: stamp collecting, lottery tickets,
Wallace and Grommit, anything with custard. The list of his dislikes is much shorter. He
was a mechanic in the Air Force but never attempted to fix his own car. He did not like
cheese or fish, and he managed to live to 92 without ever eating a vegetable. And he
professed not to like what he called “blooming animals.” He actually did care for certain
dogs, notably the family dog Nelly, but I think he really didn’t like cats, and it’s interesting
that one of the only acts of rebellion among his children is that they all own or have
owned cats.

But finally, I should note that in a very simple, straightforward way, our father loved God.
He was a long-term member and supporter of Littlehampton Baptist Church and the
fellowship there meant much to him. He lived his life in a truly Christian way, thinking
always of others before himself. And he would not want you to be too sad today.
Whenever the conversation got too depressing, he would say, “It’s being so cheerful as
keeps us going.” Of course, he was joking.