Farewell to my oldie dad

Lizzie Enfield

My father’s instructions for his funeral were in many ways typical of him. They were written by hand and then typed by Mum. He said he was not keen on readings from best-selling mystics ‘which is what some people go in for’, or bits of poetry ‘from here and there’.

Rather, he wanted as much as possible from the old Book of Common Prayer and hymns that had been written by Old Westminsters (he was at Westminster School).

Dad was a traditionalist in many ways and The World According to Enfield Senior – the title of the column he wrote for this magazine – was one he believed had been much better at some unspecified point in the past. Subsequent generations, he believed,

were messing it up, with their predilection for technology, those best-selling Indian mystics and politicians he had no time for.

His views were forthright and not always politically correct. He bemoaned the removal of ‘imperialist’ literature from the syllabus at Oxford (where he studied Classics), making way for emerging voices. He also took against what he saw as the demise of free speech and ‘all this worrying about offending people’.

Dad was argumentative and extremely opinionated but his opinion was tempered with wit and the kind of courtesy and good manners that stems from a natural curiosity about the world and the people in it.

The thing I remember most about him from my childhood were the endless questions he would ask our friends, no matter how strange and unappetising he found them. He would feign convincing interest in whether it was painful to have your nose pierced and ask politely whether working in the ‘modern’ music industry was not ‘too horribly noisy’?

More often that not, he would find his immoderate views tempered by unexpected exchanges – like ‘the man with the bun who works with wayward youths and makes me realise how unfortunate some people are’.

He worked hard at making connections with people, right up to the very end, chatting away with hospital staff and forming an affectionate and humorous bond with the Portuguese carer who looked after him at home for the final three weeks of his life.

He was in hospital for a month before

this, after having a stroke on New Year’s Eve. But, even bedridden and partially paralysed, he remained funny and forthright, telling us not to talk about Brexit – as the mess that was being made of it might give him a stroke – and dictating letters to the Times about the lack of rowing coverage in the sports section (he had rowed at Oxford).

He even started trying to write a book about his experiences in hospital, a setting he found much improved since his last spell in one – before the advent of the NHS in 1948!

Dad was fortunate to have made it into his ninetieth year without any serious health issues. He was still cycling around West Sussex, where he spent the greater part of his life, on his electric bike. And he was still refusing to be restricted by telling anyone where he was off to, until just before Christmas.

His spirit of adventure, which fuelled an early career in the Far East, where he worked for Cathay Pacific and was an amateur jockey in Hong Kong, never left him.

Last year, my 16-year-old son, Dad, then aged 88, and I went cycling together around the Austrian Lakes. Dad, on his electric bike, often arrived at our destinations first. Lucas and I would catch up and find him with a small circle of curious onlookers, regaling them with a story about something from some other part of his life.

My enduring memory of Dad will be as a storyteller. For the duration of my childhood, he had a fairly dull job in local government but would manage to turn the quotidian events into anecdotes we found hilarious. Like the boss who kept a yoghurt in his desk long before anyone ate yoghurt, along with a spoon ‘specifically for the purpose’. That boss became, in my mind, an almost mythical, Roald Dahl-like creation.

But it was in retirement that he seemed to really come into his own, enjoying nearly 30 years of adventures, friends and a whole new career as a professional old person.

Not long after hanging up his local government suits, he took off on his bike, cycling from our home in Billingshurst to the South of France, with a change of clothes and a tent. He later wrote a book about it, Downhill All the Way. Three more cycling travel books followed, about trips in Ireland, Germany and Greece – in the footsteps of Lord Byron.

His classical education never left him. When I voiced early doubts that his A chip off the old block: Edward Enfield with his comedian son, Harry, in 1993

stroke might have been caused by a brain tumour, as doctors suggested, because there had been no early signs, he admitted, somewhat reluctantly, ‘Actually, I have been struggling to read Ancient Greek for a bit!’

Alongside his writing, Anne Robinson hired him for the BBC’S Watchdog (see box). Recruited by Richard Ingrams, he wrote for The Oldie from 1992 – soon after its first edition – until his 80th birthday in 2009.

The column started with the premise that most people write about how their parents had ruined their lives but his children had ruined his.

This was tongue in cheek. But it was true that, having given up dreams of becoming a lawyer because he had a family, with four children to support, he was disappointed that not a single one of us had ‘a proper job’. But he was encouraging about our achievements and more so those of his ten grandchildren, in whom he took great pride.

He watched them all growing up in a world that was mostly beyond his comprehension. He would often turn to them for advice on how to navigate it, leaving messages on our answerphone at home such as ‘Now then. I’ve read this book and I want to make it go viral. Can you go on the World Wide Web and Twitter about it for me?’

As far as I could tell, Dad’s retirement appeared to be the happiest time of his life.

The somewhat weary father who used to complain that he’d ‘already been out to dinner once this year’ was suddenly accepting invitations left, right and centre.

He made a whole host of friends and began ‘adopting’ young people, who fitted his idea of what his children should be like rather better than his actual children did.

Just before he was taken ill, he was explaining how he was planning two ninetieth birthday parties (he would have turned 90 in September this year), as there were too many people to invite to one.

Sadly for everyone, those friends gathered not for his birthday, but for his funeral. We tried to carry out his instructions for this, as best we could, to provide the ‘good sort of service’ he outlined in his typed missive. This ended with the payoff, ‘I am only sorry that I shan’t be there in person.’

We are too, Dad. The world without Enfield Senior is not the same.