ONE OF TWO FATHERS

Tomorrow is MothersDay. It takes two immediate Fathers to make a Mother. My own Mum's immediate Father had died thirty years earlier. My Dad, who made her a Mother with God's help, died twenty-seven years ago today.

HERE, IN 1927 DAD LOOKS LIKE THE TYPICAL YOUNG 
BANKER OR CIVIL SERVANT
WHICH HE WAS NOT, HE ALWAYS WORKED IN
 BLUE COLLAR OCCUPATIONS

Today, Saturday 11th May 2019 is the Twenty-seventh Anniversary of my Father's death just three weeks short of his 85th Birthday. He survived the death of my Mother by almost 21 years.

Sent to work at age 11 years in 1918, in a metal foundry, he had a pretty tough life. His life experience together with his local social network, made him a lifelong Labor Party voter. He persevered in this even after he said he was convinced that the Labor Party was riddled with Communists whom he despised. He just could not bring himself to desert the "working class party". And in fact, he did see the world and the nation in those Victorian-era Class terms, they coloured every aspect of his life and limited his ideas of what he could or should do, how he should dress, or where he should go. It is a mental prison that many people on the "Left" still inhabit.

My Dad was born a Catholic and educated in a Convent School which was sited on the other side of the back fence of his family home, but for long periods he did not practise his religion. Yet when his "kind eyes" won the heart of Miss Elsie Georgina Beckmann, a petite and beautiful, modest girl from a devout Evangelical Protestant family, he required that they be properly married in the Catholic Church. Miss Beckmann was instructed in the Faith and duly became a Catholic, and they were married in 1927.

To-day's cynicism might suggest that he was being hypocritical. But in those days people were honest about doing wrong  - he knew it was wrong not to practise his religion, but he also knew that there are absolutes of such importance that you don't abuse them: he would not betray his Religion, even if he did not practise it - that Truth was bound to him for life.

When I was born, Dad was 32 years old, he was never unkind to me, but not outgoing or physically demonstrative of his love. ( The Poet James Macauley writes powerfully of his own Father's inability to physically express any affection.) 

He lost his job with the onset of the Great Depression of 1929 and despite daily trampings from job site to job site, did not succeed in getting a job for several years. Living on the Dole as it was called - a Federal Government handout of food each week was soul-destroying. This was exaggerated by the fact that my Mum's process worker skills had enabled her to get a job on the weaving machines of Vickers Mills at North Parramatta, adding cash to the Dole.worked on the construction of the great Garden Island Graving Dock, for the Navy - the largest engineering project in Australia's History up to that time. Work on the necessary Coffer Dam started in 1940. This was a protected employment category, which prevented him from being sent in the labour battalions to Darwin when he received the call-up in the Second World War. He could not be in the regular forces because of faulty eyesight resulting from an accident at the Newlands Iron Foundry when he was about 13 yrs old.

Photo from around 1916.

My Dad John Joseph Dixon on the left (one sock needs pulling up!) his Mum Margaret "Mag" Dixon, his baby brother William (whom Dad always admired, though Dad's life was more admirably lived except that Bill, as he was known, got to serve in the Army in WW II) and Albert ("Abby" whose Surname I never knew , but who was one of several children Grandma informally "adopted "and raised.

As I grew up, all my interests were largely alien to my Dad except Politics, and even then we were on opposite sides of the fence! Only after many years did  I hear that Dad was very proud of my progress in Banking and in other areas and used to regale his regular drinking mates at the hotel in Lidcombe with my latest efforts. We almost never got to talk at any length on any subject, conversation being limited to brief exchanges of statements never pressed too far lest the heavy crunch of disagreement should wreck things.

In my twenties and thirties, I could perceive all my Father's faults with clinical efficiency. Of course, I made every allowance for any tendency to deficiency on my own part. As the years went by my Dad evolved, particularly after he came to see the devastating effect on my Mum's mental health, fragile following a Hysterectomy. He came to see in time, how cruel was the effect of his stubborn, sullen silences - sometimes lasting 3 days - over some exaggerated "offence", on someone so vulnerable. That was the result of his own inability to express himself. Happily he was transformed.

He also returned to the practice of the Faith which was very pleasing to see and he took great delight in his three grandchildren, Marianne, Justine and Matthew and never ceased urging me to look after my Wife!

But still, he could not freely and easily communicate either emotions or ideas. Whether or not this disability stemmed from the treatment he received from his brutish and drunkard Father, I cannot say for sure, but if I were a betting man......

Dad's later years were plagued by troubles with his heart - suffering from an "enlarged heart" which caused recurring build-ups of fluid around the heart, this required repeated hospitalisation to relieve them but there could be no cure.

In fact, he had just successfully completed one such routine and was about to be released from Hospital, when he suffered a heart attack and died. The Catholic Chaplain to the Auburn Hospital where Dad died was quickly on the spot to minister to his poor body and pray for his soul. His name was Father Stephen Swift and I was most impressed by the card he left endorsed with all that needed to be done to ensure a proper Catholic burial - for Father knew nothing of the family.

We were living in Brisbane at the time and I received a call from my Brother Pat telling me of Dad's death and saying that the Hospital wanted to perform an autopsy. I was on the first plane down the next morning and went straight to see the Doctor in Charge -  a young Asian gent. He was prompt to offer condolences and almost as prompt to proffer a form authorising an autopsy for signature. When I objected that they clearly knew the cause of death and that this was unnecessary, the form quickly disappeared into the pocket of his white coat. I informed him that after the long periods of my Dad's health problems, I did not want his body used for training purposes. This is a matter which I believe the Hospital handled very badly, to say the least.

My dear Mum and Dad.

Mum died in 1971

and Dad 1n 1992

Requiescant in Pace.

So John Joseph"Jack" Dixon I love you dearly and hope we have the opportunity to understand each other far better in Paradise. My prayers for the repose of your soul and of Mum's soul are daily made.

 Originally Posted 12th May 2012 by vexilla regis slightly revised