Babyboomers.com

My father passed away when I was 15 and my mother passed away when I was 50. Even at that age and indeed now 11 years on I still feel like an orphan!

I didn't like my father, truth be told, and he didn't like me but his passing made a big impact on my life and indeed on my mother's. She became mother, father and breadwinner to three children aged 18, 15 and 11.

I was very close to my mum and I find myself doing and saying things just like her, even mannerisms are the same. She was a wonderful Mum.

Even though I didn't like my Dad, I can't help thinking how unfair it was that he should die from Cancer of the lungs less than 20 years after returning home from the war. He lived through the depression, the war and then died in terrible pain aged 50.

I find it hard to believe that I am older than my Dad now!