extraordinary

MY FATHER JOHN TARPY

MY DAD was the most amazing role model to his four children, his life spanning a world where the poverty of his upbringing has been replaced by the opportunities open to his 11 grandchildren and great-grandson. Born in the back-to-back slums of Keighley, West Yorkshire, in 1930 into a working-class family, he was the eldest of six children. When he was six, he and his sister, Eileen, were admitted to hospital with diphtheria. Eileen didn’t survive and Dad kept a picture of her above his bed until the day he died. He had the opportunity to go to grammar school, but his parents could not afford it, so he left school at 14 without any qualifications to become an apprentice fitter. He moved in with his grandmother and cared for her until she died. His childhood sweetheart, Pat Shaw, lived in the next street. They got engaged secretly when she was 16 and married when she was 21. Dad often told us about his days as a bookie’s runner in the Fifties. It was not exactly legal, but he earned enough money to pay for