My youngest daughter showed me photo of my father taken shortly after the war on the street where we lived in Epsom in Surrey. Number 6 Laburnum Road. Tele; Epsom 2777. I supposed I was about 5 then so it was about 1949.

He was very dapper looking man wearing what appears to be modern clothing though he himself was a gentleman's tailor, actually the sales manager of a very conservative elite clothes outlet for men in Oxford street London. And a mad gambler to boot which was probably the reason why we lived in Epsom with the famous Epsom Downs race track and the Queens Derby Day racing.  I just realised where he probably got most of his racing tips, from his well to do customers. At this point I'd like to remember that my best clothes were expensive herringbone and Harris Tweed and I can remember being very aware of that until the age of 15 when he went to Ford open prison for embezzlement.

Now my memories aren't all that fond of him though I do remember loving him and wanting to see him but we rarely met as I recall and after my mother died when I was 10 he went to work in London and I was sent to my grandmother who loved me dearly which made my drunk 80-year-old grandfather very jealous. My 18-year-old sister also went to my grandparents house but she soon got married and moved out.

Dad would come to Cardiff at least once a month for the weekend and we would often spend that time at a dog race or a point to point horse race track or a rugby game at Cardiff Arms Park where my aunt had the catering contract.

Anyway it wasn't a bad life just boring standing outside pubs with a lemonade and a packet of crisps for hours at a time waiting for him to stumble out. Does that still happen today? Never see kids outside pubs anymore.

But this picture I saw of him brought back odd memories. Was he really my father? I look nothing like him to my way of thinking plus my 2 sisters and elder brother do and because of their age difference there was wasn't the closeness between us all except for my mother who loved me the most because I was her youngest.

I never cried really when she died but when visiting my eldest sister some 50 years later she mentioned how close mum and I were and I suddenly burst into tears of grief which I obviously been holding in for all that time much to my sisters distaste. She had also been farmed out when she was about 6 to a childless rich relative who treated her as a princess for many years whilst my mother was in and out of hospital with heart disease. Later as a young man I was closer to her husband my brother-in-law than I was to her and I know she missed her mum dearly and I was the thing that kept them further apart so I deserved what I got and I accept that.

I think she thought I saw mum in her but I never did. She was just my eldest sister who had great kids.

To be continued...