Chris Bath

Chris Bath Instagram – My Dad didn’t want a funeral, didn’t want the “hoo ha”, he said. At the risk of having him haunt me forever, which I wouldn’t mind because I’d really like to have him around, I’m posting this because celebrating the dead is for the living, & there are so many people who will read this who also loved him. Dad was a people person. He loved people and people loved him. He was one of those Dads that all your friends loved, one of those magic people with a gift for effortlessly making other people feel good. He wasn’t loud. Dad was just quietly, effortlessly funny, a larrikin energy tractor beam that drew in anyone in his orbit. He would’ve killed it in show business but he was a draftsman by trade who ended up a precast concrete guru, the son of a welder & a machinist (who had to give up work once she married 🤦🏻‍♀️). The thing is, when Dad had two girls of his own, and lived in a house with three women (interesting during teenage years, he used to say, as we all “cycled” together), he was never sexist. We grew up thinking we could do anything because he told us so. I’d hang out with Dad in the garage learning to use tools, how to mow & edge the lawn perfectly and wash the car. Terrified, I’d cling to his much loved Hobie Cat as he taught me to sail, pretending I loved hooning at breakneck speed across Toowoon Bay and heading out to sea, just to be near him. Dancing concerts probably evened up the terror score – more like an endurance event for Dad, he’d sit at Parramatta Town Hall, tortured for hours, just to see his girls on stage for a poofteenth of a second. I always wonder if in those moments he regretted working so hard with Mum, to give us the opportunities they never had.
Of course, it wasn’t all roses. Early boyfriends sometimes created “issues” for Dad, but then later on in my early 20”s, after an absolutely disastrous experience… | Posted on 09/Nov/2022 10:42:39