Hi folks,

My wife and I took a trip to the North of England this week to visit a relative who has been ill for a while.

On the way I decided to take a look at the town where I was brought up and where most of my troubles with my Dad occurred. I wanted to take as objective a view of the place as possible. It's 30 years since I have taken a look around that town.

What struck me was the obvious wealth of the town, all the very big Victorian houses and hotels, and then my parents tiny house in the poorest part of the town. I remembered the poverty we suffered, sometimes short of clothes and basic necessities in the house. I had won a place at the Grammar School and all my class mates were well off, but I was struggling to look after a worn out uniform. I was constantly ashamed - all the time.

The town was beautiful, but high in the pennines, and we were often very cold, short of fuel for the fire and hot water. We were short of just about everything. My parents were always fighting. Our life was hard, but I was surrounded by wealthy kids at school.

Eventually I cracked and left school, although I had a place to go on to higher study, even maybe University. I left school, and went to work.

I fought with my father, but I never told him that I thought he had failed us. I just never could hurt him that much. But he was always trying to hurt me, especially if I was having a good time. He was the king of put - downs. It was hard.

When I was helping to look after him in his last illness, I asked him why he was always attacking people. He said, "Do you know why? It is disillusion."

Being back in that town I thought of us all those years ago, struggling to keep warm around that little fireplace; fighting all the time.

I am now so glad that I didn't let it all out on my Dad. I let him keep some dignity in the later years. I never told him how I really felt. How much I had hated and blamed him. Now, all these years later, I think that I don't hate him any more. He was always messing up, he couldn't hold his anger, he was a tormentor, but maybe that was his best shot? If I felt ashamed of our family, imagine how he must have felt deep down?

My wife and I have done OK, and our daughter has never be short of anything. We have lived in the right areas and she went to the right schools; she is embedded in the comfort of the English 'middle class' . For my father and mother it wasn't like that; they were permanently vulnerable and permanently in crisis. They never seemed to find any peace, even in the last years.

Well, I've decided to drop the blame game after all this time. I still believe that it is unpardonable to take your anger and disillusion out on your own child, but I have some sense of the mess my father was in.

Over the years I have seen people who need to hurt and put down other people, and they were always hurting themselves. I think that my father had a rough life, and he couldn't handle it. I also know that underneath all the fighting - I loved him.

Good thoughts, and thanks for reading this one.

Myzen