My Dad made a huge difference in my life - my wisdom and compassion I have from him; my foolishness, bad spelling and lack of patience come from neither parent. And the public transport ethos that flows through my veins also came from Dad - he was a commuter in the Liverpool area when operated by a company called "London Midland and Scottish", and in the London area with Southern Electric, as was I from a young age. We enjoyed many rail excursions over the years, with Percy Danks' Merrymaker program taking us all over the country.
Mum and Dad's retirement to Devizes, and my move to nearby, pushed us onto the road not rail for many years, as Dr Beeching had wielded his axe by then, but following my move to Melksham and realisation it actually had a station (!!) he's been behind me every step of the way as I make full use of it, and encourage others to do so too. He taught me the art of writing an effective letter, of pragmatic planning and of managing myself and my time. And he loved travelling with us - he appears in lots of the pictures at
http://melksh.am/4243 for example.
Mum passed away almost 15 years ago, but we've been privileged to have had Dad in our lives until a week ago last Sunday, when he left us peacefully in his sleep having completed the Telegraph Crossword and gone to bed as normal. I am aware that many people - including a handful of people we met on our travels - surf this site without signing in, so I'm making this a public post to reach everyone. We've planned his funeral, and a celebration of his life - during the first full week of next month. Details are available in "Frequent Posters", and on my social media. Please get in touch if you've no access to those details but would like to join us.
Walk through the crowds in the rush hour at Paddington and you're in a sea of faces, where no-one stands out, many appear insignificant, and some you don't even notice. Dad (Norman John Egan Ellis) was humble, quiet and of quite small stature. He didn't push forward, he didn't shout and he
appeared to be just another person. How wrong could appearances be. Yes, he brought public transport into my life and he knew more about trains than I ever will - I've told you that because I'm writing on the rail forum. But that was a tiny part of his life; elsewhere I'm writing of his career in banking where he was at the vanguard of computerisation, of his photography, of his love of recorded music, and of his love and caring for family and friends. But more about that next month.
Frequent posters may follow up at
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=17900.0 ... if you are not a regular signed in member (or indeed if you are!) please feel free to get in touch by email, phone, Skype, post or carrier pigeon.
Edit note: Purely for clarity, I've stepped in and corrected a few of grahame's typical typos in this clearly emotional post. CfN. 
Click on the map to explore geographics
