Meet the Mad Dog Englishman

Hello Friends
It's about time I told the world who I am, so, no punches pulled, here I am, metaphorically naked. I was born in a small village named Totternhoe in Bedfordshire, England. Through the local church records of deaths and marriages it was established that my Dad's family had been in the village for close to 400 years. Mum was a Londoner, with some welsh ancestry and her maiden was Kydd, so all we children had dreamed that she was descended from Captain Kydd the pirate and we're still searching for the treasure, which in all truth must surely be our rightful inheritance. So any of you bad boys and girls out there who have got the Heley treasure, we know who you are, put it in the post immediately, or else. Mum with her parents and sister had gone on a cycling holiday from London in 1938 and made camp for the evening. Mum and her sister Alice has gone off to explore the countryside, Alice returned to her parents campsite but mum said she was too tired and decided to stay overnight in a little village where she found lodgings with the local Methodist Church Warden's family. Next morning they took mum to the church service where she met dad. They were married in september 1939 just before the war broke out. I was the 4th child of seven and the second son. Dad had been in the army medical corps in North Africa WWII when his first son and eldest child Andrew was born, three years later dad came home and saw Andrew, who was now aged 3, for the first time. Dad and mum then had two girls, Sally and Penny and mum once told me that when I came along dad was overjoyed because it was like seeing his first son born. Stella was born 6 years after me and the two youngest Adrian and Dave arrived as our brothers as a gift. The photo is of Mum and Dad's wedding. To their left as you face the photo are Dad's Mum our grandmother Lily and Dad's best man Uncle Reg who was married to Dad's sister Winifred to the right are Mum's parents.
My blog will probably be in stories. My first Fine Art America blog is Dad's story.


Dedicated to my Dad Arthur William Heley 1915 - 2001

My Mum and Dad were married in September 1939. They loved each other and they loved their Lord Jesus, whose word they obeyed above all. Dad was a socialist and vehemently opposed to Nazism. He never saw a conflict between socialism and Christianity, seeming to believe that Jesus wanted all the people of the world to share in its abundance. When the 2nd world war broke out and dad was conscripted into the British army, he refused to bear arms on the grounds that the Bible says "Thou shalt not kill." So Dad spent the war years in the army medical corps, trying to save lives in the hope of saving his own humanity. You see; each lover knows this world spawns often hate, yet still, in vain, attempts to suckle slaughter. When he returned from the war, it seemed like Dad never wanted to leave home again. In February 2001, after raising 7 children during 61 years of dedicated marriage, my Dad died. I didn't get to see him in his final hours, it's a long and expensive journey from England to Australia and I'd spent all my money on a poetry trip to America. What sad thoughts we can carry when we think of ourselves. So here i am sorrowful, reflective and with a deep sense of loss. I loved you dad. I never heard you swear. i never saw you cheat a man, nor lash out in anger but you had a powerful inner strength and although you'd come home tired from the hard work necessary to feed and clothe your children, you still found the time to sit us on your knee and teach us the alphabet... A for 'orses. B for dinner. C for yourself. D for our Mum, oh, how you loved to hear her sing. E for brick (through a shop window). F for pheasant. G for police. H for beauty. I for tower. J for orange. K for man. L for the wicked.... ...no hell for you dad, you seemed to know that hell is a position of self imposed disturbance, like the time we were playing ball on the back lawn and you pitched me up a slow one "go on boy," I can still hear you call "you can hit that one," ...and I did...straight through the window of dad's newly purchased caravan. Dad never said a word, he just slipped into his innermost reflection as if he knew that he'd asked for that one. That window never got repaired, it stared at me for years, a shattered ball sized hole like a third eye watching the grass grow around the slowly deflating tires of an ever turning universe, reminding me never to swing wildly, even at a slow ball, not to ridicule my opponent or team mate perchance the tide turn and my voice become an echo with the words returning to haunt me... ...and I can still picture Dad mentally counting the hard earned pennies that it would cost to repair my momentary indiscipline. M for a penny, N for a pound. 0 for a nice cup of tea. R for minute. S for....S for....S for I can't remember S for... ...but I can remember the last phone call that i made to the Hospital where dad lay, blind, diabetic, a frail shadow of the strong man laying concrete foundations. Some how I knew that these were his final hours and our last word were..."l love you Dad" "I love you Rich" "Bye dad" "Bye Boy" "Bye" "Bye" "Bye....click breep breep breep breep "hello" "is that you Dad?" "what's S for...?" S for yoo hoo.... T for the Vicar, V for La France. W...W...W...dad always had trouble with W so we'd try and slip in suggestions like "double your pocket money Dad?" "Yeah, that's a good one," he'd laugh "Thanks Dad, can we have half now and twice as much on pay day?" I miss your sense of humor Dad, but I will return to sit by your grave and repeat your alphabet X for breakfast. Y for goodness sake and when its all Z and done I feel assured that Dad's kindness, honesty, self control and unwavering faith, will carry him into the space occupied by the wisdom of Jesus who said, "Accept me as your Lord and Saviour and you will enter the kingdom of heaven. Which I take to mean: Obey the wisdom of my teachings, let go of your troublesome desires through me and you will put yourself in a state of quality.
Jesus called it "A peace that passeth all understanding."
I love you Dad.
Rest in Peace.