A Gentle Man

Every morning he gathered the turn-up bottoms of his suit trousers into a pair of bicycle clips, to pedal six miles to The Offish. If it was inclement, he would flap up the road like a giant bat, swathed in a rubberised cape. He would magically re-appear to join mother and me for dinner (as lunch was called in those days) as the radio oozed the opening bars of Workers Playtime. He would get clipped up again to disappear after pudding a mere half hour later, as the pips announced the one o’clock news. Then he would be home for tea to stay, his face and hands so cold when I greeted him. Sometimes after tea I would dance with him and my mother, tiny me standing on his feet in front of the shiny radiogram in the front room with the scritchy old sofa and the full bookshelves and the fireplace that sprang to life on winter evenings. Evenings and weekends were precious and well spent, as were the mere two weeks of annual leave. Such was his life from the day he became a husband and father, a designer of oxygen plants, until the day he was made prematurely redundant by a computer.

A tall and handsome man, Harold was ingenious, strong, kind, a tad naive, and quietly funny. Yet though he emanated a tangible inner calm and fearlessness he was socially shy, preferring to leave public relations to my mother. Or me.

His life was in many ways a happy enough compromise, on account of true love, but along with extended family demands, maybe little space was left for his most essential athletic self. He swam a lot, and played a bit of tennis. But sometimes he exercised in our small suburban garden, uttering random explosive staccato sounds, and went off from time to time with a bag of strange garments to get a bus to a place called The Boo Kye (probably one of my first big word attempts.)

When I was three, I was to be introduced to his Other World. We all hopped onto a bus and then hopped off later somewhere round the back of Buckingham Palace, to enter a building that smelt of sweat and spice. There, my father disappeared, proudly clutching his bag, whilst my mother and I were ushered amongst a select and exotic audience for a display of traditional, often medieval, Japanese martial arts. Huge men in giant pants stomped about and scattered salt, before grappling and roaring, seemingly trying to remove one another’s pants until they fell over; statuesque men balletically but fiercely waved sticks and swords at one another, and then I squealed with understandable glee when my dad appeared in big white pyjamas and no slippers and started throwing other men in pyjamas all over the place, and everyone clapped a lot and shouted encouragement in familiar staccato.

This was the thirtieth anniversary celebration of The Budokwai, the home of Japanese martial arts in Britain. And the best was yet to come. We all retired to a room with an infinitely long table bearing piles of strange foods, and lots of people being important and talking a lot of staccato. And I remember a big brass gong. No other children were there, but I being notoriously well behaved and cute, was an unusual and honoured guest.

There were four figures who have remained forever vivid (in spite of my aphantasia) in my mind, perhaps as male icons. Firstly, at the head of the table sat Koizumi, the revered Budokwai founder and host - a proud smiling familiar with a vigorous black moustache that jiggled when he spoke - my father’s longstanding guide and mentor since he was ten years old, now in context. At some point, after burbling with him and his moustache, I was passed around the table to meet and coo, whilst the speeches went on. Then I landed on quite the most extraordinary lap. In a haze of sweat and spice, I was moistly absorbed into the elephantine mass that was the lap of the number one sumo wrestler (now wearing a brightly coloured ceremonial apron over his wrestling pants). Beneath his shiny plaited topknot was the hugest kindly face, small eyes sparkling through the deep folds of his smile. His voice was soft and small and utterly incomprehensible, as he gestured across the table to my father to pass over his cigarettes. The sophisticated smoke of the day was du Maurier, which came in an elegant flat orange box, lined with foiled paper. Sumo man promptly tipped out the cigarettes and took and smoothed the foil lining. Then, I was spellbound as his vast sausagey fingers sculpted the paper foil into a tiny bird, whose wings flapped softly when its tail was gently pulled. Someone produced another piece of foil, which became a flower, then after a second bird manifested, he placed them all gently in the cigarette box before grasping me by the shoulders to raise me high above the table as if I too were a little bird, and amidst laughter and clapping, he flew me back to my mother. As I flew, I looked down and caught a glimpse of the third man in my recall. Standing alone by the door, as if on guard, stood the most beautiful man in the world. Head to toe in black, he wore an armoured leather coat over a long pleated skirt. His features were proud and chiselled, his long black hair scraped into an elaborate knot. In his gauntleted hand, a long ceremonial samurai sword. As he caught my gaze, he slowly bowed his head to me, and made me feel safe. I later peeked at him from time to time, but he remained consistently inscrutable. And then I saw my father, sat in an aura of pride and comfort, his two worlds briefly gathered in one space, in a roomful of peaceful and dignified philosopher warriors.

Had he not met my mother, Harold may well have pursued more deeply the gentle art of jiu jitsu, and doubtless gone to Japan to complete his path. But family life was all-consuming, and eventually his involvement with the Budokwai would fade. He taught judo in the evenings at a local college for some years, but as the art of karate began to steal the limelight, his students were less attentive to the subtleties of Ju:’gentle’ Do:’way’, and its principles of the balance between competitiveness and fair play. They had no motivation to study the ancient art of balance between body mind and spirit, that could lead them to poise, self confidence, and calm alertness. He would come home repeatedly from their ardent kickings with serious injuries to his legs, until he eventually suffered such serious bloodclots that he had to abandon his beloved craft forever.

I will always cherish the memory of the man who carried me through the forests high on his shoulders, who taught me to expel negativity with the gusto of a sumo wrestler, how to firmly resist unwanted attention, and, most usefully of late, how to fall over with minimal damage ありがとう Arigatou, Pop

Weatherwise

Bruce