Wish you were here (dad)

If I could have been with any one person tonight, it would have been my dad. Anthony Johansen, born 1929, man of the sea, sailed across the North Atlantic in 1944 aged 15, dodging U Boats, bringing supplies to hungry Britons. After the war, he sailed the sea in the Merchant Navy for many years and he sailed yachts competitively and for fun.

My partner and I tonight went to see Fishermans Friends at the quite wonderful Cheltenham Town Hall, seven men from Cornwall, one from Yorkshire, who sing beautifully and affectionately about the sea. My god, my dad would have loved it. Close my eyes and he was sitting next to me, laughing uncontrollably at the jokes and banter and joining in vociferously with an irresistible rendition of Sloop John B. Who would not want to be at Port Isaac, one Sunday lunchtime, with the sun in the sky and an imaginary god in his heaven, clasping a pint of ale and singing their epic ‘South Australia’? My dad would be and I would give pretty well everything I own to be with him one more time.

I am one of the lucky ones. Although my dad and me lived separate lives in separate countries for most of our lives, our distant relationship eventually became close. I think I finally got him and he got me. Eventually, opposites attracted. And when I got to know him, to really know him and to really love him, I could not have been more humbled. The working class son of poor people who never had so much as a bathroom or an inside toilet, who worked his way to the top, ending up in the private office of the Canadian Prime Minister. But he was always a sailor.

Throughout tonight’s concert, there were constant reminders of my dad. The sea shanties and folk songs mentioned times and places. I heard New Brunswick mentioned at least once, where he made his home in the 1970s, and Cape Horn where he sailed many, many times. These incredible men were singing for me tonight, but they were also singing to my dad.

The last time we were actually physically together was in 2009, two years before he died, but tonight I was in a place he would have loved beyond belief.

The ultimate irony for me was that I had intended to purchase a Fishermans Friends CD for his 82nd birthday, but he never made it. So he never heard it. I wish he had because their music was of his soul and of his life and tonight we were together as one. I didn’t feel he was there spiritually because spirits are part of the imagination but my imagination saw us there, together. And for tonight, that will have to do.