Consciously and unconsciously, Dad taught me a lot
of important stuff during his life, including the
value of respect, a love of music and the joy of
laughter. To my eternal regret, however, one thing
I never did learn from him was his own unique
bread recipe, which he'd perfected after many
years of tweaking. He tried to share this secret with me on a couple of occasions, but my mind was
elsewhere and as he never wrote it down, it's now
gone forever. He did teach me his method for
making good porridge though. I guess the time that
it took was about perfect for my attention span.
Now that the porridge season is upon us, I often
find myself, early in the morning, coffee in hand,
standing over a steaming saucepan of oats, with
Dad's voice echoing down the years, '...stir,
stir, stir, stir......keep stirring.....don't stop
stirring.....it's very important that you keep
stirring.....that's the secret of good
porridge....never stop stirring.....' Not so much a
method as a mantra. I stir Dad, I stir, but it
never tastes as good as yours did.
On the subject of oats, I found this old sheet
music in a charity shop last week and it sparked a
warm glow of recognition. I became aware of
'Mairzy Doats' at 7 or 8 years of age via BBC
Radio's Junior Choice, where 'Stewpot' played the
contemporary version by The Innocence, while Dad,
of course, was already familiar with the song from
previous recordings dating back to his own
childhood in the 1940's. Together he and I would
sing this silly little song ad infinitum, much to
Mum's bemusement. That's another thing Dad taught
me - there's nothing wrong with a little silliness
every now and then.
