Today, My Dad died.

If you were with us in August, you'll know that my Father suffered from inoperable and aggressive bowel cancer, which, after stealing a look at his notes this morning, had metastasised, or spread, to other parts of his body.  He was given between three and twelve months to live, and he lasted for five.

He'd had a couple of falls recently that had taken it out of him a bit, one particularly nasty one earlier this week that had grazed his arms quite badly.  But as was his style, and the style of many ex-servicemen, he refused to go to the Doctor and get them checked out - on the basis that he "had had worse".  My wife and I took it in turns to go and see him, her one day and I the next, after I finished work.

Last night I let myself into his house to find that he had fallen after answering the door to someone and had lain in an unheated room, with his front door ajar for a number of hours.  The paramedic, who arrived within minutes of me calling 999 declared him Hypothermic, with a temperature so low that it didn't even show as a number on his electronic thermometer.

You know what I did between calling the emergency services and their arrival? Remembering all the time that I'm a qualified first aider?

I did nothing, I froze, I could not think what I should be doing... Luckily the guy on the end of the phone kept reminding me to breathe, otherwise I would have probably forgotten to do even that simple task.

The ambulance crew asked me all sorts of questions as we drove to the hospital, and every one of my answers were suffixed with 'I think' or 'But I'm not sure'

I sat in the waiting room for about three hours whilst they tried to bring his body temperature up to something approaching normal, going no faster than one degree per hour, so that they didn't introduce any extra strain onto his heart.  When they finally let me in to see him, we didn't recognise each other, there was just a frail old man swaddled in blankets, staring into the distance.  I sat with him for a while longer, watching tears forming in the corners of his unblinking, unmoving eyes.

When the nurses came, they asked me if I could leave the cubicle so that they could put him on a 'comfier bed' ready to take him up to the ward later, when his tests had come back.

I left the Cubicle,
then I left Resus,
then I left Accident & Emergency
then I left the Hospital and got a taxi home.

I felt so completely useless, almost in the way.

When the phone rang this morning at 05:30, I already knew why, the Ward Sister said that his status had declined, or some-such bland phrase and that I should probably come in as soon as I could.

He was in a side-room when I got there, which dissolved any last real threads of hope I had.  The Sister led me in and explained that all they were doing was making sure that he was comfortable, she asked how I took my coffee and left us alone.  I looked down at the shell of the man who had single-handedly raised me since I was eleven years old.  I asked him if he could hear me, I asked him if he knew how much I loved him.

Then I got angry and asked him if he knew what he was doing to everyone that he was leaving behind.

Then I watched as the shallow up and down movement of his chest slowed and stopped.

I thanked the Doctor, who explained that he hadn't suffered - That's the done thing I guess.

I thanked the Sister, who had given me the coffee and the 'Dealing with bereavement' booklet.

I walked the length of the ward, towards the exit with what I imagined to be the stoic, dignified stride of a gunslinger walking away from his last fight, determined to make it outside before I broke into a million pieces, I almost made it too.

Guys, I need a favour and it won't cost you a penny.

So, if you've looked at the Blog, or liked The Chimping Dandy on Facebook, or followed the Twitter feed recently or know me personally, you'll know that I've released a book for the Kindle.  Here it is look, in this picture:

You can press here to go to Amazon

Now, take a look at the bottom of the screen... Just above that five star rating *cough*, you'll see the price.  It's in red, you can't miss it.

That's right, it's £0.00 pounds, that's quite literally free. (Well, for a limited time at least)

How many things can you get for free nowadays? Not a lot, well, not unless you're one of those people who help yourself to a handful of pick'n'mix whilst you're walking around ASDA, or tests the car doors in public car-parks to see if you can get yourself a new car stereo or a glove-box worth of loose change (But we all know that you're not that kind of person don't we?).

So, from today until Sunday 3rd November, you can download all 407 pages, all 75 chapters of the book, if you have a Kindle, or the Kindle app for your Smartphone, Tablet or PC. with absolutely no cost to yourself.

I can see a few of you looking a bit quizzical, as if to say, 'It was only about £2 when he was charging for it, why has he suddenly made it free?  And more to the point, if I'd known that he was going to offer it for free, I wouldn't have bought it with cold, hard, cash in the first place.'

To the people who've already bought it, and want your money back, I completely understand, if you drop me an email at thechimpingdandy@hotmail.co.uk with your address, I'll stick you a couple of quid in the post with a signed picture of me naked for you to put up on your wall.  (In fact, if you just want a signed picture of me naked to put up on your wall, feel free to get in touch - Although it won't be a very big picture, it's quite cold in the UK at the moment.)

Why am I offering this, the first collection of my meandering musings for free? (Well, for a limited time at least).

It's all my Brother's fault you see, the one who lives in the hollowed out volcano in the Mediterranean.  He has bought our dear, pigeon shattering Father (TM) a new Kindle and, I'd quite like to be able to download my book to this new device for him without him saying 'Why have I got to pay to download your book?  It's not like you're a real author or anything, you're not exactly John Grisham are you?'

What I'd like you to do, is just take five minutes to download the book, or if you don't have the Kindle reader app, take five minutes to download that, then take five minutes to download the book, and then...

I'll start that again, it was getting away from me a bit.  I need between 10 and 15 minutes of your precious time.

1. Download the Kindle reader for your device (if you haven't already and it's not a Kindle)
2. Get a FREE COPY of the book From here
3. Write a quick review (This is the most important bit for me if you've got the time)
4. Pimp it to anyone that you think needs cheering up, you're doing a public service here people - Laughter is the best medicine, as they say in The Reader's Digest.

Thanks for listening guys, I'd really appreciate it if you could find the time to do this, I want my Dad to be proud of me, like most of us do - You can think of it as your kind act for today, you have my permission to be as grumpy as you like for the rest of the day, after you've followed the above four steps that is.

You do try to do one kind thing for someone every day right?

You should, we should all aspire to be more like this chap, The Free Help Guy, people love him, he's great.

P.S. Hopefully, sometime next month the real paper version of the book should be released, I think it's going to be about £8 and I will happily sign copies and write funny stuff in it for you for free if you send it to me with some form of return postage.

-oOo-

OK, I'm the first person to admit that everything above reads like I'm a needy A-hole who just wants to pimp his crappy book and he's trying to use you wonderful Internet people to do it for him because he's broke.

And whilst I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want people to read my books, because I think some of the stories are genuinely funny, I didn't decide to publish the collections to make a fortune and quit my day-job  (about a hundred people have to buy a book at full price before I see any money at all) this particular appeal is all about my relationship with my Dad.

And this is why.

Help me out guys?

Priorities

OK, so I'm guessing that most of you know of my Dad, be it through his shenanigans where sub-zero avian vermin are concerned, or his stories of life as a Sergeant in the RAF.

He's incredibly self-sufficient, not just for an 84 year old, but in general.  He does all of his own shopping and cleaning, goes everywhere on the bus and seldom asks anyone (especially his family) for help.  In fact, he even 'does' for an old friend of his, a bit of light housework, sorting out paperwork, making sure that his kids don't steal all of his money, that sort of thing

Anyway, he checked himself into hospital last week with stomach pains, all sorts of unpleasant things going on with his digestive system and so forth, but his GP had told him that he just had an infection that was being a bit resistant to anti-biotics or something, probably.

He spent a week in there, being poked and prodded, pumped full of hardcore antibiotics, shoved into giant magnetic doughnuts and having cameras put in places where you normally wouldn't want a camera.

when we went to pick him up, he told us that his consultant had said that was an issue with one of his 'tubes' and they'd be having him back in when everything had calmed down a bit to do something about it.

It wasn't until the next day when he pulled an 'Agent Tee' (Go and watch Men in Black 2) on us, and waited until we were in a busy shopping centre before he told us the rest of the diagnosis... He was in the late, inoperable, stages of Cancer and his Consultant had given him 3-12 months to live.

Then he just carried on walking to the Post Office as if he hadn't just dropped the 'C-Bomb'.

Anyone who knows me in real life will attest to the fact that it's not very often that I'm rendered speechless, but on this occasion, I did not know what to say... So I told him that I didn't know what to say.  He replied that there wasn't really anything that I could say that would make any difference, so why bother?  Mrs Dandy took this opportunity to disappear off to the Vets, initially to pick some stuff up for the dog, but mainly so my Dad didn't see her burst into tears - He's a man of that generation where overt displays of emotion embarrass him greatly.

We walked for a while, in silence, until I broke the tension by asking if there was anything they could do, he shook his head.  I asked about Chemo, he reminded that Chemo was still technically 'something' and he'd already told me that there was 'nothing' that could be done.

After we'd driven him back home, we sat with him for a couple of hours, whilst he stared at the TV.   I can honestly say that this was the first time I'd ever noticed how fragile he was.  He'd never been a big guy, never topped 5'9" or been particularly muscular - But he's my Dad, so by that virtue a dyed in the wool Superhero, his power was never to leap buildings in a single bound, he was always clever enough to find a way round.  He couldn't fly, but he did tell some stories about when he used to.  His one superpower was to be unerringly right about almost everything.

He would say things that started with 'If I were you...' and 'You know, if you do that...' and invariably ended with me ignoring him, making a hash of everything and asking to borrow more money.  He warned me about women who were destined to tear my heart out, credit cards that would put me into debt and houses that would drain my very soul - I ignored them all. I'll bet you can count how many World's Greatest Son mugs I have in the cupboard on the fingers of one foot.

(Although, I don't think my Brother has any of those either, and he's taken early retirement and is living in his hollow volcano lair in the middle of the Mediterranean - He gets up every morning and can see the sea, and an honest to goodness shipwreck out of his lounge window - I think my Dad might have impossibly high standards for what classes as a good, successful, Son.)

I told him that I'd come and visit him every other day or so, to make sure he was OK and check if he needed anything.  I mean, we only live around the corner when all's said and done, so it's not much of a stretch... And Mrs Dandy's going to do his housework and shopping.   and that makes me feel... Well, guilty if I'm honest.  He's 84, shouldn't I have been doing these things for him for a long time?

I mean, I've been thinking that he's not been long for this world for years, his memory's not what it was, his trips to the Doctor are getting more frequent and more serious, and every time I go to his house when he's not answered his phone a couple of times in a row during the day, I expect to find him cold and stiff in a heap at the bottom of his stairs, or dead in his bed.  But he never has been.

Not so far at least.

So, on reflection, I'm a terrible son, a financial and emotional burden, thoughtless, non-empathic and generally a bad sort.  Except, I'm kind of not... I have offered to help innumerable times in the past, he just looks at me askance and says 'Why? I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself.' - So many times that I stopped asking in fact. I let him ask me if he needs anything - It's usually something like 'I need a big bag of compost' or 'I want to go to PC World, but there isn't a bus that goes that way.' - Nothing too taxing, it's usually the donkey-work that he trusts me with, things that I would have to try really hard to mess up.

But he's my Dad, and doing stuff for my Dad makes me feel good - Feels like I'm paying him back for me being a bit of a disappointment.

I regularly fix his computer, buy him tinned peaches (he loves tinned peaches, they remind him of when rationing first finished I think) and provide him with Grandchildren.  But I still feel guilty, not about not doing more, but for waiting until it was confirmed that he had a terminal condition before thinking about doing it.

I've told some people (I suppose technically, I've now told quite a lot of people, what with Blogging it) and most of their reactions have been similar, you get the 'Oh, I'm really sorry!' and the 'Is there anything I can do?' - And these people are great friends and good people and they mean well and there's nothing else you can really say... But it still take all my strength not to sound all glib and answer 'Why? it wasn't your fault.' and 'Yeah, just nip back in time about a year and give me a poke so I can tell him to go to an Oncologist so he doesn't die.' - I'm practicing my 'Thank you, but no.' - But it's going to take a while I'm afraid.

(If I do see you in real life and I do say any of these things, feel free to just shake your head and walk off, whilst muttering 'Wank*r' under your breath.)

Whilst we're on the subject of reactions, my Brother initially felt guilt too, must be a family thing - He was guilty about not immediately spending however many hundreds of pounds jumping on a plane and turfing up at our Father's house only to be told by a little frail old man what a bloody idiotic waste of money it's all been, he should have waited until there was a machine that went 'Beep' involved. (He is, nonetheless, paying hundreds of pounds on a plane ticket and coming over anyway - He's just sensibly waiting until the prices go down next month... Dad will actually appreciate that, he'll be proud - We're an odd family when you get down to it.)

Mrs Dandy was pretty devastated, but has now clicked into super-efficient carer mode, doing everything possible to make life easy for him.  Especially if that means shouting at him for his own good when he fails to take sufficient care of himself in the few times a day that she's not there. Technically known as 'trying to keep busy so she doesn't think about it.' I think.

The Mini-Dandy cried, a lot - but now she does a fine job of masking her emotions so that she doesn't make anyone else feel sad... Which reminds me, I must have the 'Bottling up your emotions can make your mind snap.' Conversation with her this weekend - I guess that she's learned it from me, I'm not an obviously emotional person ('cos I'm dead hard Me...) and things usually don't hit me until everything's all over, you know, when I consider that I've got time to grieve without effecting anyone else - Yeah, because that situation happens all the time.  I guess that being your Father's Daughter isn't just trifle and pony-rides all the time.

The Micro-Dandy... I didn't get to see his reaction, because the wife told him whilst I was at work, because I didn't seem to be able to bring myself to do it.  The words that he said that were the important thing though I suppose.

'Oh... Is Dad alright, because Granddad is Dad's Dad isn't he?'

Stunned me a bit when I found out about that one, with him only being eight years old and everything.

My Dad himself... Well, I think he's doing the whole 'Stiff upper lip' thing, trying to convince us that he's jumped to the 'Acceptance' phase of the Kubler-Ross model (Yeah, you're right, there should be an umlaut over the 'u' there, but I really can't be bothered) Though I don't believe it for a second.

Every time I leave him I imagine that he goes and sits back down in his armchair and bursts into tears - I know that I probably would, but I'm not my Dad... He probably just wanders into the bathroom and shaves himself with a Bowie knife which he licks the foam off and then spits it at the dog, because that's the sort of thing that Dads do.  That's the sort of thing that my Dad does at least.

At least, he does in my head, because he's a Superhero.

My Superhero

So,  that's why I said that the Blog might get a bit sporadic from now on... Not because I can't think of anything funny, although I'll admit that it is a bit more difficult at the moment.  But because I really need to finish the book and get it published before...

Well, you know what I want to do it before...

I want him to be proud of me one last time.

Thermodynamics, it's the law!

Today's story isn't about me... It's about my dear old Dad - If anything, I like to think it goes to prove that whatever I have wrong with me, I probably got from him.

He's a young 84 year old - He's done a huge number of jobs in his long and happy life, from being in the RAF to working as an electrician on the railways and is blessed with a permanently sunny disposition (apart from the times when he's opinionated, rude and kranky)

This particular tale takes place in the (I think) 1960's and shows the healthy disregard for Health and Safety that made this country great.

-oOo-

It was summer, and hot. Hot enought that you could forget the whole frying eggs on the pavement scenario, and jump straight to the 'nylon trousers melting to your body and your conkers exploding' kind of deal.

At the time, my dear old Dad worked for British Oxygen (BOC), a company that makes and bottles all sorts of interesting gasses for industrial and medical uses. As the company name suggests, one of their biggest sellers was oxygen, liquid oxygen. This was stored in large, white tanks, you might have seen one - They're characterised by the fact that the pipes around their base tend to have a thick layer of frost on them.

One lunchtime, he and his cronies decided to go out into the yard to eat their 'snap' as was the colloquial word for a packed lunch at the time. Finding the sun to be a little warm and direct for their tender, British hides, they found respite in the shade of the big liquid oxygen tank. Halfway through their lunch, one of his friends spotted a pigeon, who had obviously landed on one of the pipes and had frozen, quite solid.

My father, who still has a love of physical humour, went and found some welding gloves and broke the bird free (unfortunately leaving its feet behind) and proceeded to marvel at this wonder of accidental science, it's perfect preservation, how peaceful it looked etc. One of his gang thought that a game of football would be the order of the day until it was pointed out that this might be, in some way, disrespectful.

At that very moment, a young and pretty secretary came around the corner and started to walk across the yard. Thinking on his feet, he grabbed the bird from the aspiring Bobby Moore and cradled it in his hands.

'Awww,' He said, 'Did the little birdie fly into the big nasty tank?'

As he said this, three things happened; He stroked the bird gently, as if it were the most precious thing in the world, his friends looked at him as if he had just had a debilitating brain aneurysm, and the secretary's interest was piqued. She started to walk over, all high heels, miniskirt and bouffanted hair and said,

'What's that?'

'It's a pigeon, we think he flew into the tank and knocked himself out... Didn't you little man?'

'Awwww.' Said the girl, leaning closer.

'In fact, we've been looking after him for a while, he's about ready to be released.'

'Really? can I watch?'

'Of course, Off you go little chap, be safe!'

With that, my Dad pitched the frozed pigeon up into the air, whereupon it arced about fifteen feet then crashed down onto the concrete yard and shattered into a million shards.

It's said, that on warm nights, if you're walking past the old BOC works in Derby... You can still hear her screaming.