Poetry - Dad's Funeral Speech

Today is a good day – we got to bring Dad home one final time and now we can celebrate his life together as friends in his presence. It is something he would have loved.

 

It is a bad day too – we have to say goodbye to someone whom, for most of us, has been part of our lives for as long as we have been around.

 

He always envisioned the cause of his eventual death as being shot by a jealous husband – sorry Dad; you are going to have to be satisfied with trying to impress the girl in the next lane with the speed of your front crawl – because that is probably what got him in the end.

 

So, as his son, how would I describe my father?

 

Well – we all know that he loved being around his family…he was generous to a fault, had a great sense of humour and loved nothing more than sharing a good meal and some even better wine with his friends.

 

He was also very impulsive; stubborn; not completely aware of his own limitations and didn't always think through the consequences of his actions or decisions…sometimes with amusing consequences.

 

Shortly after I was born in Stockholm and returning to where we lived in Knightsbridge, I can imagine Dad having said… "London's no place to bring up kids – I know, let's move to the Channel Islands – it's much better and, anyway, the tax man won't be able to get at my money there." So we moved to Jersey.

 

Then I can imagine him saying to Mum… "We should really take Guss and Nick and introduce them to my parents – I know, let's move to New Zealand for a bit. I know, I have an even better idea, you go by commercial airlines and I'll take my own plane…meet you there." So Mum, Nick and I flew commercial to Hamilton and Dad took his war surplus Prentice and flew half way round the world. Judging by some of his stories, he was lucky to make it.

 

Then I can imagine him saying… "I know, let's move to the Caribbean – great climate and all that, it'll be great, you'll see". So we moved to the Bahamas. But unfortunately, he couldn't get a work permit there so he and Mum had to re-think.

 

Then he must have said… "I know, let's move to England again, but not London, somewhere else – it'll be a great place to educate and settle the kids – they can go to Eaton and Cambridge – it'll work out great." We certainly got to see a lot of the world as his family.

 

So, anyway, we settled in and old orchard house in a rural part of Hampshire and I remember spending a lot of the first part of my life there in an aeroplane doing aerobatics somewhere – I wasn't allowed to tell mum that we spent most of the time flying upside down.

 

At that point in his life, he came upon the realisation that he needed to advance his qualifications – there were just far too many dentists around that had more letters after their names than he had, so he must have said… "I know… I'll get my surgical fellowship exam: that should do it – how hard can it be anyway?"

 

Well, he had a crack and didn't get it. It was hard and he needed to find a way of motivating himself to study harder and must have said to himself… "I know, I'll give up flying until I get it – that'll give me the kick up the pants that I need…I'm bound to get it now!"

 

He never flew properly again after that as he never quite made it with his fellowship – he passed part1, but never got his part 2 despite studying like mad for many years to get it.

 

While all this was going on he also started to look around the house we had and must have thought that something was seriously missing and must have said to himself… "I know, we need a swimming pool… hey, I've got an even better idea – I'll build it myself as everybody knows that builders are only there to rip you off." So brick by brick, he started building a swimming pool, changing room, showers and pump house in our back yard.

 

At the same time, he looked at our house and must have said… "Hmm, this place is getting too small – I know, I'll build an extension – that should fix it, can't be hard." So brick by brick, he started to build an extension at the same time as building the pool.

 

Then he must have thought to himself… "Hmm, this dental surgery isn't making enough money – if I had more space, I could fit more dentists in and we'd make more money – I know, I'll build an extension onto the surgery as well – I might as well while I'm doing everything else." So, brick by brick, he started to build the extension onto the dental surgery.

 

I tell you something, Nick and I spent a huge amount of our growing up mixing concrete and wheeling to concrete to Bill the brick layer. We lived in a perpetual building site.

 

I remember one particular occasion when the extension was up and he needed to cut a door from our house to the extension with an electrical circular concrete cutter. When he was done, the entire house was covered in a thick layer of fine dust that managed to find its way into every cupboard and closet. For weeks we went to bed in dusty sheets, wore dusty cloths and ate dusty food and he was not in Mum's good books.

 

None of the building projects were ever properly finished and if you look on Google Earth, at the satellite images of the area, and zoom in – you can see that the pool is still not finished and it seems to be filled with the same dark green sludge that it was for most of its existence.

 

One day, Dad decided that our building site needed better defences, so he went and bought himself a pistol, a 22 Ruger with three magazines that held 15-rounds each. He had to install a safe to keep it in, so us boys couldn't get at it. Then he must have said to himself… "what if an intruder breaks into the house while we are not at home – I know, I'll tell Guss where the key to the safe is."

 

How he ever thought that we would not take the gun out and play with it while he was not there, I can't imagine. Cowboys and Indians was far more fun with real guns and how Nick and I made it to adult hood, I shall never know. And how he never noticed the several hundred rounds of ammunition that went missing is an even bigger mystery.

 

He also never noticed the bullet holes in the fire place in the living room.

 

We also went on some awesome family holidays – our camping holiday through Europe started with us driving off the ferry in France in the middle of the night in very thick fog. We drove for a while in the VW camper van hoping to make it to a camping site but the fog was too thick, so Dad decided to pull off the side of the road and pitch camp there for the night. In the morning, we woke up to some really heavy sounding traffic and took a peek through the curtains to see what was going on. We then realised in horror that we had pitched camp on a roundabout.

 

We also got to drive through East Germany while it was still part of the Soviet Union. We camped next to the Berlin wall and made holes in it so we could take photographs.

 

We drove through Yugoslavia while it was still under communist rule and it was all really fascinating.

 

It was on one of our family camping trips to Italy, that Dad had his first heart attack near Venice. It was then that he came to the realisation that he had to change his lifestyle – he couldn't study for his exams, build on three building sites and run his dental surgery at the same time. He must have said to himself… "I know, we'll move to Saudi Arabia. The Arabs have plenty of money and we'll get rich. That will solve all our problems and the tax man won't get any of it." That was in 1982.

 

And it was in 1982 that Helena came into the picture – Dad fell in love with her from the word go and has regarded her as his daughter ever since. When we got engaged, Dad welcomed Helena into the family and told her that, as a Wilkinson, she was part of the world, not just one country.

 

Helena and I had some incredibly exciting visits to Saudi Arabia and some of my fondest memories of Dad are as his scuba diving partner in the Red Sea. They are incredible memories and in the evenings we would eat some fantastic food washed down with home-made gin and tonic – the laws of any land simply didn't apply to Dad and I believe it was Mum's common sense filter that kept Dad from spending the rest of his days in a Saudi jail.

 

It was on one of his holidays from Saudi Arabia that Dad travelled alone to NZ to visit his mother. Mum gave him strict and explicit instructions before the trip that he was, under no circumstances, to waste any of their new found wealth on a property in New Zealand. Two weeks later, he had paid for Pukehina by cheque – and this was one of the best moves that he could ever have made. We love that place.

 

But it was Helena and I that first decided that we would move to New Zealand. Mum and Dad decided that it was a good idea and Nick and Claire, also, decided that they would come out. It was a chance for our family to be united for the first time in 15-years.

 

And here we are 15-years later saying our final farewells to Dad. During this time here, it has become clear that, for Dad, having the chance to move back to the place he grew up, and have his family around him, really completed him.

 

I have one last anecdote for you. Dad's greatest enemy in the world was rust. He hated rust. Rust was the scourge of the earth! This made him easy prey for one particular salesman that sold him tanker loads of a substance that would see his enemy forever vanquished – Wax-Oil.

 

For decades, anything metallic that he owned was covered in this oily smelly disgusting goo. Every car part, every tool, and every out door household fitting was smothered in this foul smelling greasy gunk and it made his tools completely unusable.

 

I remember one day that Dad decided to do his brother in law, Merv, the biggest favour ever and managed to find a tin of wax oil that he had brought over from the UK. He then proceeded to cover all Merv's tools, forever protecting them from rust…guess if Merv was impressed!

 

On a closing note, I would like to acknowledge everybody here for their support and warmth. Thank you for being here with us today.

 

Thanks to Alan for being our MC today.

 

A special thanks goes to John for freeing Dad from the clutches of the coroner so that we could actually hold this funeral before Jake has to return to Otago.

 

And also, thanks to Merv and Gail for their support and for introducing us to such a fantastic funeral director, Elaine.

 

A special acknowledgement comes to Mum for her tireless efforts to keep Dad alive since his very first heart attack. Each Day from that day onwards, was a blessing for him. Mum, you have been incredible.

 

Dad, it has been an honour to have been your son. Cheers!