"Jack" Swift (1911-1975), by his son.

My father was born before the British Empire peaked in it's power and, I guess like many of his generation, shared in it's prejudices and in it's finest hour. My father's father died before I was born, but I am told that he was a lovely man. My father's elder brother, "Jim" was killed in action in 1918, aged 19. There is no known grave.

My father could have won a scholarship to a fine school, but rheumatic fever put an end to that dream. Those profligate interwar years did not give second chances. But like many others so rejected he would go on to be a skilled craftsman and a fine NCO when war came again.

He volunteered for the Royal Air Force before the desperate need of Britain's hard pressed army would draft even those with weakened hearts. He married my mother and after a weekend honeymoon in Ilkley, not far from their home town of Bradford, left for the war not to return home for four years. He was with Eisenhower's forces when they invaded North Africa. He flew on board DC-3s [or"Dakotas" as the British called them], ferrying supplies. From Africa he continued his war into Italy and stood on Mount Vesuvius when it erupted in 1944. He ended the war by Lake Como, and I think he had grown to love Italy, though he would never have the opportunity to return.

Having been de-mobbed, he never left these shores again, unless you count our annual trip on the "Yorkshire Lady" around the bay at Scarborough. My parents worked hard in those post
war years ( which had brought no spoils of war) to provide for these little luxuries for me and my older brother and sister; these yearly breaks were the highlight of our childhood.
I remember him coming to my aid as a child when once upon a time I got my head stuck in a porthole of that ship. The time he defended me against my mum when my rabbit invaded the house and made a mess in the home she worked so hard to keep nice. He always used to buy me two ounces of wine gums each evening on his way home from work at the CO-OP department store, "Sunwin House". There were times too when he could be infuriating and opinionated, at least from the perspective of a know-all teenager. I think he aspired to be middle-class and he chose to be a poorly paid salesman who wore a suit to work rather than be a better paid blue-collar worker. I think he was immensely proud that my siblings went to university.

And I think he envied the opportunities our generation took for granted and little appreciated, but I don't think he begrudged us. I don't think he was a bitter man, but perhaps he was a disappointed one, which is a pity because he was content with little. And it is a great blessing
to be content with little.

He became ill - although we didn't realise how seriously -the year before he was due to retire. He was in pain and my last recollection of him alive was when I helped him out of bed and onto the commode. I think he must have hated the humiliation of his teenage son helping him so. But that was the first time I believe I actually did something for him.

Although I think I take after my mother's side of the family, there are times when I look in the mirror - I remind myself of my father.