Some Bittersweet Memories of Life With Father : A Guy Called ‘Lucky’
I lost my father to his own legend because he kept it alive to keep himself alive. That, in turn, kept him from me.
He was a British news photographer. He wanted nothing else from the age of 18. That’s when he shot a photograph of the newborn baby Queen Elizabeth as her nanny wheeled her in a pram through Hyde Park.
A stroke at 78 neither changed dad’s priorities nor released his sense of career. His final murmurs were from a hallucination about 1945. He said he mustn’t be late to meet his reporter and their flight to France to cover Germany’s formal surrender.
Dad photographed world occurences and often was first with the most exclusive and so they nicknamed him Lucky Dean.
The Great Train Robbery. An underwater shadow that could have been the Loch Ness Monster. The crash of the R-101 airship. The London Blitz. World War II from the decks of North Atlantic convoys to Hitler’s bunker. George Bernard Shaw. Winston Churchill. Barbara Hutton. Dad’s Speed Graphic froze them all and his work may be seen in large halls and big books.
No Time for Marriage, Kids
His life, however, held little time for a marriage and its kids. So he didn’t teach me to ride a bike or throw a ball or catch a fish. I did well at sports and almost swam for my country but Dad wasn’t there to share. He missed my military graduation and his son’s first beer and the Farnborough Air Show. I taught myself to drive.
And if he were here this Father’s Day, I would tell him it doesn’t matter that he wasn’t there. I made it without him. Hearing his love and feeling his pride, I’d say, would have been nice. But it wasn’t essential to survival.
As a matter of fact, I think I’m a better father for it.
My son is 16 and we embrace because his grandfather and I never did. We’ve enjoyed guys’ nights out, just the two of us, since he was 3, because that’s what I always wanted to do with my dad.
I’ve taught him about stick shifts and field stripping a .45 automatic and snap rolling an airplane because my dad had no time for such things. We’ve set flagstone, sailed boats, built window boxes, run, studied, ridden horses and motorcycles, planted roses, gone to movies and museums, wept, laughed and walked Paris together. I taught him to ride a bike. To catch a bluegill. To throw a baseball. I swear, one day, we will make the Farnborough Air Show.
We’ll be together today.
We’ll talk about the career he’s working on.
He wants to be a news photographer just like his granddad.