As it's 'Fathers Day' today I thought it would be fun to have a little reminisce about my dad who passed away back in 2005. No depressing stuff, just a few choice memories about one of my best friends.
Brian Cookman was a lanky bugger (which explains where I get it from) who liked hats. He had a lot of hats. In fact we had drawers and shelves full of hats at home. This fact is of no importance or relevance but it makes me chuckle. If you 'google' my old man, you will find pics of him in a variety of head gear.
Brian Cookman played the guitar and harmonica. I play the former but have never mastered the latter. I was always jealous of my dads ability with the harp-on-a-rack thing. He could play the face-piano in various positions (seated, standing etc.) which never made sense to me. I always thought 1st position was something to do with ballet but it's also a harmonica technique apparently. He was a left handed gent who learnt the guitar right handed. His explanation was that it was almost impossible to find a left handed guitar in Pinner in the early sixties. I like that attitude. "Oh well. I can't be bothered to restring it so I'll just learn it backwards".
One of his most common remarks (after all the usual stuff aimed at me, my siblings and my long suffering mum) was "Oh England!" This was groaned out and usually followed by him placing his head in his hands. Every time we batted badly, bowled badly, got knocked out of a world cup etc. he would start shouting about how they get paid for this and if I was crap at my job I would be fired so how come they get paid to be useless?!?!?
His logic seemed sound enough.
His long term influence over his family and friends is immeasurable. This is my happiest feeling about my dad. Whether it's the records I listen to, the books my brother reads, the attitude my younger sister has or the parenting skills my older sister employs, they all have a recognisable touch of 'Dad' in them. Many of my best friends who I see all the time started out as friends of my mum & dad. Likewise, many of my social group from my youth ended up being friends with them. Even after all this time, a week won't pass when I don't hear someone say a kind word about Brian. How cool is that?
I could go on and talk about his musical influence on me. Our various road trips to crap gigs in folk-clubs and beer festivals. How we shared a love of silly films. His readiness to wax poetic about sunlight streaming through a pint of bitter. His Tai Chi obsession. His use of made up swear words. If I did, we'd be here all day and I have things to do so we shall leave it there.
He also told a lot of really bad jokes that made lots of people laugh.
Show off.
xx
