He saved me from fireworks

Anyone who knew me when I was in single digits knows what a wuss I was with so many things. I had so many crippling phobias (storms, cockroaches, roller coasters, snakes, etc) I wonder now I look back how I could even function.

But among the most terrible was my fear of fireworks. I still remember one of the few times a family member came to collect me early from school – always an adventure for a little kid – when my brother was sent in to get me in fourth class while Mum and Dad waited outside in the car so we could all go to the Sydney Easter show.

It must have been a battle getting Dad to take the afternoon off work but he did it, and off we went to the grand back entrance (probably Lang Rd, Moore Park), where Dad had some dodgy mate he knew from the automotive trade who opened some cruddy back gate so we could get in for free. For most of my young life I thought the entrance to the Easter Show was a swinging metal gate about eight feet high.

I remember discord in my parents' marriage around the practice, with my mother eventually insisting we pay and go in the front instead of sneaking in like criminals. In fact that reminds me of a time we parked on the side of Wallgrove Rd in the rain on the way back from the Perrys' house at Blaxland so Dad and David could go back to strip a dumped Mini for parts because David had bought one he was doing up – Mum fretting about the cops coming past the whole time).

Anyway, David showing up at the door of my classroom elicited both joy and dread. The joy was because I was leaving school early to go to the Easter Show, which meant (low intensity) rides, showbags, food and everything else. The dread was because part of the milieu was always the gigantic fireworks display everyone (except me) loved.

Throughout my childhood convoluted schemes abounded to try and shield me from it all. One year we took an old cassette player (in fact it was so long ago it might have been an eight track cartidge player) and 70s headphones with huge vinyl pads so we could sit in the stands and drown the noise out, but I still buried my face into my chest and screamed.

But another year – and I don't know why we didn't think of it earlier – we organised for Dad to take me off into the showbag pavilion while the fireworks were on, where I could still hear the explosions but they were diffuse and far away, like the sounds we used to hear from Holworthy Army Barracks in Gymea on weekends if the wind was going in the right direction. I don't remember Dad being particularly excited or enthusiastic about anything much in life so I'll never know if he enjoyed watching the fireworks and was disappointed about missing it. If I know him at all he'd probably prefer to have been at home with a beer than walking around the Sydney Showground at all.

Anyway, my tiny heart was filled with terror at the thought of facing storms, fireworks and all my other myriad terrors and it really tempered the enjoyment I took in some things. But in doing someting he probably thought was just a pain in the arse but just have to when you have kids, he took all that dread away that year, and I still remember nothing but the excitement and enjoyment of the experience.

Now he's gone, I wish I'd told him when he was around how much I appreciated it.