A fund of memories for dad's big day...
As Father's Day approaches, two daughters reflect on the fathers they loved – and how losing them proved to be the catalyst that changed their lives
Sue Hepworth's poignant reminiscences, above, of the first man she loved will resonate with every daughter who has no-one to buy a Father's Day card for this Sunday.
The loss of your father can take the feet from under a woman. The rock you always knew you could lean on, the strong arms that could lift you up for all those years... how can they ever be replaced?
The truth is they can't be; you're a child no longer.
A partner is there to share the good and the bad, not protect and guide you through.
But many fatherless women come through their grief to find a new strength in themselves.
Bakewell novelist Sue went through the death of her father six years ago and has used much of her emotions from that time in her second book, Zuzu's Petals. The novel deals with the impact of a father's death on its heroine and her relationships with the men in her life.
Says Sue: "My father's death made me reassess my whole life and I hadn't expected that. My dad had become a difficult character in old age. He was deaf, and in pain and crotchety. I thought I would be able to deal with his leaving.
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"But in the event, I was completely overwhelmed by how big a thing it was to lose a parent," she says.
Sue still thinks about him daily. Even though she is a woman of 58, with three adult children, she still feels swept away by the fact that one of her parents is dead.
"I felt incredulous that people should be expected to go through something as painful as bereavement. If I felt like this about my father's death, how would I feel when my husband died?" she says.
A former psychologist with Manpower Services in Sheffield, Sue channelled her thoughts, hopes and fears into the journal she had started to keep when she decided she wanted to become an author.
She was following in dad's footsteps. He was Wensleydale writer Fred Willis, a well-read columnist in a national farming magazine.
"Unwittingly, it became my bereavement journal," says Sue. "I wrote about his illness and his death and my feelings for a year afterwards. Most of the time, I felt like I was a foreign correspondent, sending back bulletins from this foreign land called bereavement."
Her father never got to see one of her proudest achievements – her first novel in 2006. Plotting for Beginners was co-written with Jane Linfoot, a friend she made on a creative writing course. The gentle romantic comedy sold well.
But ideas for a second novel didn't come easy.
She wanted to use the raw emotions and deeply considered thoughts from her bereavement journal, but didn't want the piece to become a work of fiction.
"It was my father's life and death; it was real," she says. "I wrote a serious piece I felt might help other people through bereavement and sent it off to publishers. The rejection letters said it was honest and powerful, but wouldn't sell," she recalls.
As the years passed and her feelings mellowed, she realised a novel based on her experiences could be written in a way in which her father would have approved.
Her new novel, Zuzu's Petals, is named after a touching scene focusing on the bond between father and daughter in the legendary film, It's A Beautiful Life.
Warm, funny and romantic, it is set in Sheffield and Wensleydale and features a forty-something character who goes through the death of her elderly father.
"Although it is comedic, the heart of it is serious and deals realistically with the death of a parent and the impact it has on relationships," says Sue. "This book wouldn't be here without my father's death. Losing him got me to where I am now."
Zuzu's Petals was published in hardback by Snowbooks this month and is out in paperback on July 3.
Read Sue's tribute to her father: see next page.
My father was selfish, irritable and critical, and he could be outrageously rude. But you don't have to be perfect to be lovable, and I did love him.
He, in turn, loved his family. He'd sing with us in the car, take us trout fishing in upland streams, cheer for us at school matches, and liked to hear about our interests. I still remember him rushing in to tell us about a great new television series about a boy and his horse – Champion the Wonder Horse – and how he couldn't wait to watch it with us.
He liked ice cream as much as we did, and on hot days in my childhood, he left money in a pudding basin on the garden wall, so that when the ice cream van arrived, whichever child was nearest could buy two shillings worth for the family to share.
I admired his writing. Once he wrote me a ballad for English homework when I was completely stuck. Another time I was heartbroken over some boy and he wrote me a poem about that.
He was affectionate, intelligent, witty, knowledgeable, and had many small passions.
He was crazy about raspberries, field mushrooms and Craster kippers, and was on a constant quest for the perfect sausage.
I got my love of James Thurber's cartoons and Fred Astaire's dancing from him.
When he was old, it was his habit on sunny afternoons to lounge in the garden wearing his tweed jacket, collar and tie and hat, and swathed in a blanket. He would sit there reading, smoking and chatting.
At four o'clock he'd ask me to go up to the village shop and buy Cornettos - his treat.
The first summer after he died, the space without him was enormous. Empty of him, the summer garden felt inauthentic, like a fake.
From protected to protector: Tracy Fletcher's story.n When Tracy Fletcher's strong, fearless policeman father died, she didn't go to pieces.
Instead, the daughter who had always felt protected became the protector.
The Daddy's Girl stood even more firmly on her own two feet.
"I made massive changes to my life. I walked away from my 20-year career with the HSBC in Rotherham, took some time to reflect, then used my inheritance to set up in business," says Tracy, one half of Calvert & Fletcher, bespoke banking recruitment specialists.
"Dad had worked so hard to earn the nest egg he left for me and my sister. I wanted to do something valuable with it, something he would have approved of."
Work has gone so well, she often feels as if he's having a guiding hand. "Although more likely, it's the fact that since his death, I've changed as a person," adds Tracy, 39. "Losing him made me much more laid-back.
"Death gives you a better perspective on life. When you go through the trauma of it, ever other trouble pales into insignificance. and that attitude definitely helps me in my working life."
Tracy lost both her mother and father within eight weeks.
"Mum was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2004. Within five months, dad was told he had exactly the same thing. When the cancer went to his brain, they offered him radiotherapy. He refused. He told them his wife was dying; there was no point in living without her.
"I took him to my mother, who was in a hospice in York, and I left them cuddling together. That was the worst day of my life."
Her mother died soon after. Her father lived for another two months.
Tracy got through it all "by taking on the role of my father. I went into coping mode and arranged everything instead of mourning.
"I didn't cry at their funerals. I became the strong one for me and my sister, who was feeling the loss of our mother very keenly."
Their father, Peter Savill, was the local bobby in Worsbrough Dale in his early career, ending up a Chief Inspector in Wakefield. The former Army commando was a big, brave man – and not only to his two daughters.
"People respected him massively. He was an upright, decent man," says Tracy proudly.
"He taught me always to be honest and to never let people down, however hard it is to follow through on what you have promised.
"But more importantly, because of him I learned how to be the peacemaker. My dad was the most reliable man I have ever known and I always felt safe with him. But he was very strict, very organised. He WAS the master of the house. I worked out that the best way was to negotiate with him rather than be confrontational.
"It is now my strongest ability and enables me to get the best out of a situation, and of people. I have him to thank for that."
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Friday 25 May 2012
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