It's a painting by William Frederick Yeames (which hangs in Liverpools Walker Art Gallery), but currently it's also the title of a discussion thread running on Urban 75. It's evoked a lot of debate, and I was suprised at the number of people who simply don't speak to their parents, or have at best strained relationships with months going by without contact or communication.I've never met my genetic father; he's just a blank space on a birth certificate. I've never traced him, or my genetic mother, since two loving parents are quite enough for anyone in my opinion.
My adoptive Dad and I get on very well and I last saw him two weeks ago when I took him to hospital for a cataract op.
He lives in Manchester, and is very ancient. Indeed he can remember when most of East Didsbury was fields, when his Dad had a farm there! Now it's a sprawling suburb.
I was driving him through it the other week and he said:
"I remember hoses snaking all over here"
We were just at a busy junction, and I'm like: "Wha..??"
"I got a weekend off and a lorry driver gave me a lift up from London to see my parents, but the Germans had been bombing."
He did in no way consider it alarming, merely memorable.
These days it's a national crisis when someone manages to set a jeep on fire and drive it into an airport arrivals building. It sounds like a massive cliche, but frankly, we don't know we're born, etc etc, wheel me off now please nurse it's time for my meds.
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