Spudulike

I'm reading the second instalment of Danny Baker's memoir at the moment.  This volume, like the first, is a thinly disguised love letter to his late father, Fred, or Spud, as he was universally known.

DK was clearly in awe of his old man, and with good reason - he sounds like a riot.  Here was a man absolutely brimming over with rough-hewn joie de vivre.  He was a docker with all the attendant industrial language and volatility that that role usually brings, but he was also a vibrant and funny man.  He played fast and loose at times, like Dan, but was always convinced that good times and good fortune would prevail in the end.  It's easy to see why people wanted to be around him.  The book really makes you wish you'd been around when he was in his pomp.

In fact Dan's entire childhood sound idyllic.  It's easy to look at the material facts and imagine it was little more than Dickensian: the council flat in Deptford, the dept-collectors calling at the crack of dawn etc.  But, as Dan is quick to point out, there was laughter, noise and fun at all hours of the day and night.  There was also a feeling of freedom and community that I suspect children these days are denied.

My own childhood home was like this.  Yes, we were skint, but that just makes to revel in what scant pleasures you could afford.  A week in the Isle of Sheppey was a joy to me as a boy, an absolute joy.