38 years ago tonight Beach Buoy was sat listening to music on his headphones.
He his sat listening to music on headphones as he writes this as it happens.
Back then the telephone rang.
It was fairly late at night, about 11 pm.
11 pm seemed so much later back then somehow?
'Hello'
'Hello son its Mrs Shaw, sorry son its your Dad.'
and so the world changed for Beach Buoy.
The man that he once thought was his best friend had gone.
He was 56.
It was a Heart Attack.
They found him slumped at the Kitchen sink with the tap running.
He must have felt sickly.
Oddly, it ended up that Beach Buoy was the last to see him alive.
Beach Buoy had passed his father as he went to do the Christmas shopping.
They passed in vehicles going in opposite directions, near the Travellers Rest Hotel in Hartlepool, earlier that evening.
Beach Buoy waved without response.
'Can't have seen me ?' thought Beach Buoy.
Turns out his Father was desperately trying to reach home as he was having his heart attack.
That's him in the photograph above at Crimdon Dene, Hartlepool with his oldest sister Nelly.
His Mother had died of Cancer aged 43, Nelly help their Dad bring him up.
When he was evacuated during the war, he wrote home to say how how homesick he was.
Nelly was told "Go and get the lad, he is homesick.'
She did.
That's his Dad below on the left with his uncle on the right.
The uncle served in submarines.
Beach Buoy's dad wanted to follow that route but was talked into becoming a Plater; a reserved trade.
Safer to build ships than go fighting in them.
Beach Buoy has ended being a Plater because of that decision taken during the war years by a Father trying to guide and protect his son from the harsh realities of front line war.
They went to the beach at Middleton every weekend.
Always early morning.
"Best part of the day."
The photograph above taken by Beach Buoy after a shrimping trip in Middleton Bay.
It was his Dad's favourite photograph.
He was wearing his "Whitby slicker." as Dad called it.
He loved that top.
He had the bucket to fetch fresh water to cook the freshly caught shrimps.
They had a shellfish feast in one of the cabins.
