MY FATHER, VICTOR RAY: THE LATER YEARS...

 Victor Ray, my father: the later years…

I guess that this is my toughest assignment about my father, for his latter years were marred by physical pain, tragedy, living in a ‘home’ and suffering from dementia. 

However, I have attempted to compartmentalise the period by looking at various facets of his rather unusual later life. There will be sections about his holidays in Swanage and Mawgan Porth, also about the aftermath of my mum’s death, his need for fitness and then his decline, then about his foibles and finally about his death.

In no way am I criticising him or belittling him but the humour which emanated from when he was in his seventies and eighties is certainly worth recording and I hope that anyone reading this will smile, laugh and enjoy the episodes, for I’m sure that he would have wanted that to be the case…

Holidaying in Swanage…

When my kids were younger, my parents and my mother-in-law accompanied us on some caravan holidays in Swanage. Cauldron Barn Caravan Park, Ulwell Caravan Park and another, near the council’s trash tip were used by the family but one incident involving my father at the Ulwell end of the sandy Swanage beach will forever be remembered by us all. 

ULWELL BEACH AREA IN THE BACKGROUND...

The sea at Swanage was not conducive to bodyboarding, let’s say… Indeed, it was a safe bathing experience for young children and even when the tide was out, there were only metres to walk to play around in the small waves. One thing we did was to chuck a small ball, lighter than a tennis ball to each other by skimming it off the water surface, thereby making it fly up and more difficult to catch. I loved that because I could dive about, something I found rather pleasant, hence being a wicketkeeper in a cricket team and also a crazy 5-a-side football goalkeeper at the Aston Villa Leisure Centre in later years. 

JAMIE & ME IN THE SWANAGE SEA...

Standing parallel to the slight swells of waves it was also possible to time a throw so that the ball was diverted by a breaking wave, making a catch even more difficult. We had arrived in Swanage on a Saturday and on the following day, a sunny, warm one, dad and I went into the sea to partake in the activity described above. We were waist-deep in water and threw the ball several times, the sea was very calm but also rather cold and suddenly dad stopped like a statue and looked down, calling me towards him frantically. 

“What? I demanded?” But dad simply pointed desperately downwards in an agitated manner as I approached. It turned out that dad’s metal plate which housed a few false teeth had presumably contracted in the cold water and dropped into the sea. Instead of attempting to recover the plate, dad had stayed put to mark the spot and told me to dive down to find them… Thanks for that.

Try as I did, I failed. The teeth had gone, no doubt proudly worn by a some lucky codfish, or more aptly, a ray… 

Dad was distraught. He had a week to spend in Swanage on holiday without some of his teeth and he was not a happy camper… Mum gave him a crust of toast on the Sunday morning, which totally set dad off on a tirade, which actually set us all off laughing. Dad saw mum’s ‘error’ as thoughtless, whilst we all thought it hilarious and that was one of the few times mum got the better of her husband, albeit inadvertently…

So, we went to the beach that day with dad in a vile mood and although it was windy, we did have a windshield with us, although we had forgotten our mallet, resulting in me strolling across the Ulwell promenade past all the beach huts to where a guy was hiring out windshields to folks and I asked him if I borrow a mallet for a few minutes. He agreed.

THE BEACH HUTS AT SWANAGE.
MUM, JAMIE & ME...

What happened next has become a piece of Ray family folklore, an incident which was so unlikely, even a comedy sketch about it would be berated for being totally impossible…

I walked back along the beach to where we had placed ourselves on the sand and passed a group of dads and kids playing with a frisbee near the shoreline. As I passed, a lad about ten years old picked something up from the sand and exclaimed, “I’ve found some teeth…” With the most impeccable timing, I swiped them from his hand and said, “Thanks for that, they’re my dad’s…”

It was remarkable… The frisbee players looked shocked, I strolled on armed with teeth and mallet, called my dad and as he looked up, said, “Here’s your teeth…” I threw them, he caught them, totally amazed.

He boiled the teeth in a saucepan of water back at the caravan and wore them until the end of the week. He would have the teeth replaced by his dentist back home in Castle Bromwich of course but the timing involved during that ridiculous incident could not have been bettered… 

I WAS OFTEN BURIED AT SWANAGE...

Fitness…    

My father jogged, despite his bad knees, across at the park, the Norman Chamberlain Playing Fields in Shard End. He would stretch, leaning against the back of a lounge chair when you visited and he had a very basic exercise-bike which he used sparingly I believe.

In the week of his 65th birthday in 1985, he played in a football match in Aston Park, for I had assembled a football team to represent the Museum and Art Gallery in a council sponsored league and this was the first outing for some of the Museum’s staff. Dad played as a diminutive central striker against us and, er, scored a perfect hat-trick, a right-footer, a left-footer and a header… Credit to him.

I battled on for my team but we were short of fitness… We were allowed to bring in ‘ringers’ when we played our league games and we eventually won the division, although the organiser apparently absconded with the funds which were supposed to pay for the trophy and medals! We were left with nothing to show but pride for our unbeaten ‘season’, drawing once and winning the rest. I played as a sweeper, for I was clearly one of the few fit footballers in the team… 

When my son Jamie and I played a few times with dad in the late 1990s, he was in his late 70s by then but he still kicked the ball well enough, despite his replaced hip and his dodgy, painful knees. He would knock Jamie over too, something which he relished… Jamie wasn’t impressed by that.

Actually my mate Brian had injured dad’s shoulder in the clavicle area when they tumbled over together tackling one another on one occasion in the 1960s and the pain never really went away. Dad would say to anybody, “I’ve got this bad shoulder you know. Brian did it. Here, feel this…” Unbelievably people did feel his shoulder. He thought that was funny… 

After mum died…

Well, it was a gradual deterioration for my father. 

Drugs were prescribed to calm him but it was tough to know whether he was taking them regularly or simply chucking some or all of them away. He was constantly tearful and apparently hallucinating sometimes. Apparently… One evening he rang me and sounded like he was crazy, so I visited him forthwith. He was conversing with a wall, which he thought was Jamie, so I took him to Heartlands Hospital, where of course mum had died. 

He verbally abused me in the waiting area (no change there…) but when he was finally assessed by a doctor, dad’s countenance changed from nasty and imbecilic to obedient and full of respect for the medical profession, like he was taking the piss… Perhaps he was… When asked to push against the doctor’s hand from a prone position, dad almost shoved the doctor over, then he followed all instructions and displayed such a fine response that the doctor must have wondered why the hell I’d taken him to the hospital in the first place. Loneliness might well have been one cause of his behaviour, linked to the erratic taking of his prescribed tablets.

He had glaucoma too, which I am certain he worsened by his careless use of Falcon hairspray, which likely flew into his eyes as his health worsened and his aim became more erratic. 

However, the kids and I took him on holiday to Mawgan Porth…

Mawgan Porth… 

We took him on holiday after mum had died and we stayed at what was once called the Mawgan Porth Caravan Park, now The Park. 

WENDY, DAD & LUCY AT MAWGAN PORTH...

Dad had been shaken ever since mum had passed away but in some ways I reckon he enjoyed being a pain. However, what occurred on that holiday will remain in the annals of memorability… 

We stayed at the Falcon Inn in St Mawgan on the Friday evening but dad found it tough to remember which room he was supposed to be in, trying a variety of doors before finding his belongings. After the Saturday had been spent settling into our caravan, we all settled down to sleep but I was awoken very early on the Sunday morning by quite a loud noise. Dad had fallen over in attempting to find the loo near one of the two exit doors, having tripped on his bedclothes which had entrapped his lower legs. He had banged his head on the floor and he was motionless. 

I saw that he was alive but unconscious. There was no mobile phone reception in Mawgan Porth at that time and so I ran to the site’s public telephone and rang for an ambulance which arrived really quickly. Dad was taken off to Truro Hospital and I followed later, after sorting the kids out. Lucy and Wendy were adults by then anyway and when I arrived at the hospital, dad was OK, sitting up drinking tea. However, when a telephone rang, it had the same tone as his own at home and he attempted to get off the bed he had been placed upon to answer it, leaving staff to haul him back into place.

He recovered enough to be taken back to Mawgan Porth later in the day…

POST-TRAUMA IN THE CARAVAN FOR DAD...

HE SLEPT FOR A WHILE TOO...

I decided to label his room’s door and also the loo door, in case he needed to pee on the Sunday night but then I got carried away and labelled the mirror, the fridge, the cooker and various other items of furniture too. I don’t know why. It was funny though…

Were the labels useful for dad? Well, er, no… On the Sunday night he left his bed and set off to find the loo door but naturally ignored my labels and he opened one of the exit doors instead which strangely didn’t have any steps down to the ground outside… 

I heard a loud bump and got up hastily to check on him but he’d totally disappeared. It was ridiculous. He’d gone… I looked outside, couldn’t see him in the darkness and I was confused. In the end I went outside and eventually found dad wandering around the site in his red underpants and I escorted him back to the caravan. He was uninjured but when I explained that he had opened an outside door not the loo door, he came out with the immortal statement, “I thought I detected a high drop…” 

I have no idea where he peed to this day…

During the remainder of the week, he tripped over several times but when he got changed to swim in the site’s outside pool one day, Jamie came out with another memorable comment, for dad had attempted to climb down steps into the pool but lost his grip and fell in. It was quite hilarious but the serious faced Jamie scolded him, “Grandad, it says no jumping or diving…”

We had taken a tent for use on the fine Mawgan Porth beach but dad kept climbing into it like some blundering boar and falling over anyone who was already in there but he saved his best two tricks for the Falcon Inn’s garden and when we left the beach on one rainy afternoon. 

TENT BLUNDERING...

My daughter Lucy had been working her summer days at a Wetherspoons joint in Ward End, Birmingham and she so wanted to buy us all a drink, so we went to the Falcon on a sunny late afternoon. Jamie went off to play on the climbing apparatus at one end of the garden, whilst Wendy and dad grabbed a free wooden picnic table. Lucy and I set off to walk towards the pub building and order some drinks but as we approached the doorway, we heard a commotion behind us. Without looking round, Lucy remarked immediately, “That’s granddad…” She was right. He had attempted to sit on the bench which was attached to the wooden table but as he had swung one leg over, he had overbalanced and tumbled backwards onto the grass… 

Wendy had made no attempt to help dad and she was just laughing uncontrollably, whilst some other folks had kindly brought dad to his feet. Wendy just sat there, helpless…

ON THE BEACH...

Later in the week, we had been on the beach for much of the day but the weather had become cloudy, then rainy. I was still bodyboarding in the sea and the kids had upped and left the beach, leaving my dad sitting in the tent, sheltering. I returned to our place and realised that I had to carry just about everything back to the caravan. 

I placed my rain jacket on dad and asked whether he could help me by carrying a folding chair and maybe our football back to the site. He agreed, as the rain teemed and after taking down the tent, we set off towards the dunes.

DAD WITH BROLLY APPROACHING FROM THOSE DUNES...

The slight incline onto the dunes was formed of soft sand and I was laden with stuff, walking slowly beside dad, who, quite suddenly overbalanced forwards and fell flat on his face into the sand, like he’d been shot in no man’s land at the Somme. He was upright one second, then flat as a pancake the next…

It was hilarious, for although the ball had been dropped, he was still holding onto the chair…

My walk back to the caravan, holding dad upright was arduous. I deposited him and what we had carried into the ‘van, then walked up to the empty pool and actually dived in, despite the rules. It was warm and I was alone. It was lovely…  

We would play the card game ‘Whot’ in the caravan during the evenings but if dad had consumed a beer with our evening meal, he would begin to giggle and use unusual words, which he repeated and repeated, laughing in rather a weird manner. The kids of course thought this was hilarious, as when he attempted to sing along to music playing in the car, never quite getting to the beat and guessing at the words of Kool & the Gang’s ‘Get Down On It’ for example. 

His life soon changed of course and very much for the worse…

Falling again…

Dad began to trip over more and more and he was taken home once after falling on the pavement on his way back to the house from the local shops. He had banged his head. He fell too in his side-passage to the back garden, thumping his head against one of the side-walls, blood seemingly everywhere but in truth his sight was becoming severely limited due to the glaucoma problems he continued to battle.

A carer would eventually go in each day and feed dad from meals stacked in his freezer and give him the necessary medication but if I had to guess, dad would be likely not to have swallowed them much of the time…

A house key was placed in a small safe in the side-entry to the house, released by a number code and the carer would let himself in. However, one day, he found dad at the bottom of the stairs, having banged his head on a piece of furniture in the hallway. He was taken to hospital by ambulance but the carer failed to contact me at work. The key to the house hadn’t been returned to the ‘safe’ and when I popped in later that day to check on dad, for I was unable to get a reply from his phone, I couldn’t get into the house. I assumed the worst had happened and so smashed the glass in the upper half of the front door and kind of dive-rolled through the gap. 

Despite my furtive and hesitant search, there was of course no-one there at all, so I checked the carer’s log. He had written about the fall and that dad had been taken to hospital, but which one?

Eventually I managed to locate him at Heartlands Hospital and visited…

FANCY HAT...

He would never return home…

Hospital and assessment care-home…  

Dad recovered from his fall, again having damaged his head but the doctors told me some days later that he would not be allowed to return home because he was unable to recount his full name, his birth date, or his address. He simply repeated numbers instead, apparently… I was mystified. Whenever I had visited him in hospital, he had been reasonably lucid and so I went to him and asked him to tell me his full name: 

“Victor Douglas Ray…” he snapped back.

“When were you born, dad?” 

“4th June 1920…”

“Where do you live?”

“121 Nearmoor Road, Shard End, Birmingham B34 7QF…”

I was aghast. “Why didn’t you tell the doctors what you have just told me?”

“I’ve told them my service number, nothing else…”

OK, so dad thought he was in a WW2 prison camp…

When a male nurse washed round his genitals one morning, he told me later that ‘queer people like that’ shouldn’t be allowed to work in hospitals… 

“Dad, he was a nurse…” I explained…

Falling yet again… 

This time he fell out of his hospital bed, trying to get out and toddle to the loo. As he landed, he punctured a lung and once again I was informed by phone that he’d had a mishap. I didn’t recognise him though because his face had puffed up like Michelin man’s and his voice had become squeaky like that of strangled parrot due to the lung collapse and for all the world it looked like he was going to float to the ceiling like a balloon…

It was hilariously sad…

Assessment…

Worsening and still believing he had been captured by the Germans, he proceeded to harass the carers in a temporary assessment home, by sneakily tripping them and cursing at them when they tried to contain his foibles. 

He was later moved to an institution in Hobmoor Road, where the medication he was given simply accelerated the deterioration in him and his dementia worsened, his remaining hair became long over time and it was a real problem attempting to shave him, virtually impossible to communicate with him but still he lingered, head drooping, eyes wrecked. 

His companions included the widow of ex-Birmingham City and Wales footballer John Watts from the 1950s and a carpenter who galloped round the home like a dressage horse and caressed anything he noticed made from wood. 

Dad could barely see but certainly responded to my daughter Lucy’s voice, who visited him very regularly and also, intriguingly he reacted to the music of Frank Sinatra.

DETERIORATION...

When finally he passed away having been returned to Heartlands Hospital very poorly, I arrived to see him one Sunday afternoon but found him dead in a bed. I alerted a nurse and said: “Thought you might like to know that my father is lying dead in his room…” 

I turned and walked out...