OBITUARY: JOHN ALBERT WESTON, my father.
('Knight' is my pen name; I was born David John Weston.)
John Albert Weston was my father. He was already 40 when I was born. My family never do anything in a hurry - his own father, Josiah, had been 55 when John was born.
Today dad died aged 96. He had been claiming he might die any time since he was 50, but that was just because he said what he felt and he meant what he said, more than anybody else I have ever met. Honesty, as he saw it, was the first of virtues, and his version was to say just what he thought. So if he felt like he was dying, he said so.
Always a conscientious man, he made elaborate plans for the family’s well-being if he died. Though he was ten years older than my mother, she eventually rounded on him and asked him what made him so sure that he would be going first? In 1997, she led the way, and now he has followed her 19 years later.
His home for the last three decades was the farmhouse his own father bought to give him his own farm, long before he was old enough to work it. But dad, who was brought up in another farm which neighboured a railway line, chose to work on the railway instead. He briefly helped in the gardens of a stately home and for a while in the great depression he followed a threshing machine to seek day labour when the railway had no job for him; otherwise he worked on the railways all his working life.
How typical of dad to do one thing and stick at it. He got one job and did the best at it he could, taking great pride in every aspect of his work as a driver (US:engineer), earning the respect and admiration of his colleagues. But he also limited his advancement by choosing to spend time with his family. He married one woman and stuck to her, and thus lived a life totally at odds with the kind of world we are now living in, in which nothing is permanent.
Dad always seemed to me to be permanent. He didn’t seem to be the dying kind. Death didn’t run in the family. His own father had died taking the cows to market (on foot and alone), aged 84; his mother lived into her nineties. At 93, when I last saw him, dad’s mind was every bit as sharp as it had ever been; far too capable for what life had offered him.
In all my life I have never known a man who would so greatly have benefited from an education. His hopes ended one place short of getting into the local grammar school. Why is a mystery which will now never be cleared up; he should have walked in.
Not wishing to be a burden to his elderly parents, he began work as soon as possible. Rather than resent not having had an education, he made sure that my sister and I were always aware of its primary importance, and did everything in his power to ensure that the local school was as good as it could be.
As a boy he attended the Anglican church on top of the hill which towered over the surrounding landscape, where he was baptised. As a young man he was confirmed, and as he later told me, he really meant it, though he had his doubts about everyone else. Dad really meant everything he ever said or did, and no-one was ever in any doubt about that.
As a married man he attended the Methodist church in the town where he lived with my mother, because that was where her family went, but the differences didn’t matter as much to him as the God who he worshipped. He had no pretensions to singing the hymns well, but genuinely meant it when he said what mattered was to make a joyful noise.
One of his greatest achievements, from my point of view, was buying the home we were brought up in. Dad understood the opportunity when it came up and went down to the estate agents at 6 a.m. armed with a flask of tea to keep him warm. Nobody was going to beat him to the counter and pay for that house. So we lived like kings, by English standards, in a house with two rooms we never found any use for until my grandmother lived with us, had a choice of dining and living rooms, a big bedroom each, a decent garden on one side, a yard at the back and what seemed like a prairie at the other side.
I have lived a very strange life and this must often had bothered dad. When mother was dying, I was heartbroken that she would die without seeing me reach my goals. The Lord told me that they never mattered at all to her; she only ever wanted me to try the best that I could. Today I found out from my sister that dad’s verdict on my new life was “I am glad that David has found his place in the world”. Only now do I understand. Dad got one job and stuck at it and had one wife and stayed with her. Finally I have my feet set on the ground and I fit. I think that was all that he ever wanted, though I never realised it until he was dead.
Well then, if he was happy that I had done all that he wanted to please him, and my mother only ever asked that I try my best, why do I have to do everything the very best that it can ever be done? Why don’t I settle for anything less? Why don’t I set achievable targets and be glad with them? Maybe because dad always tried to do his work the very best it could be done and didn’t really understand not trying to do so. I shall now never know exactly why, but he may well have had this in mind:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.” (Colossians 3:23-4).
That was how he did his job.
If I have dreamed bigger dreams, then that is because I got the education he never had. But perhaps in truth there is no bigger dream than to do an honest day’s work, be faithful to your wife, tell the truth, and die without regrets. All other things will pass; Dad did all of those things.
John Albert Weston was my father. He was already 40 when I was born. My family never do anything in a hurry - his own father, Josiah, had been 55 when John was born.
Today dad died aged 96. He had been claiming he might die any time since he was 50, but that was just because he said what he felt and he meant what he said, more than anybody else I have ever met. Honesty, as he saw it, was the first of virtues, and his version was to say just what he thought. So if he felt like he was dying, he said so.
Always a conscientious man, he made elaborate plans for the family’s well-being if he died. Though he was ten years older than my mother, she eventually rounded on him and asked him what made him so sure that he would be going first? In 1997, she led the way, and now he has followed her 19 years later.
His home for the last three decades was the farmhouse his own father bought to give him his own farm, long before he was old enough to work it. But dad, who was brought up in another farm which neighboured a railway line, chose to work on the railway instead. He briefly helped in the gardens of a stately home and for a while in the great depression he followed a threshing machine to seek day labour when the railway had no job for him; otherwise he worked on the railways all his working life.
How typical of dad to do one thing and stick at it. He got one job and did the best at it he could, taking great pride in every aspect of his work as a driver (US:engineer), earning the respect and admiration of his colleagues. But he also limited his advancement by choosing to spend time with his family. He married one woman and stuck to her, and thus lived a life totally at odds with the kind of world we are now living in, in which nothing is permanent.
Dad always seemed to me to be permanent. He didn’t seem to be the dying kind. Death didn’t run in the family. His own father had died taking the cows to market (on foot and alone), aged 84; his mother lived into her nineties. At 93, when I last saw him, dad’s mind was every bit as sharp as it had ever been; far too capable for what life had offered him.
In all my life I have never known a man who would so greatly have benefited from an education. His hopes ended one place short of getting into the local grammar school. Why is a mystery which will now never be cleared up; he should have walked in.
Not wishing to be a burden to his elderly parents, he began work as soon as possible. Rather than resent not having had an education, he made sure that my sister and I were always aware of its primary importance, and did everything in his power to ensure that the local school was as good as it could be.
As a boy he attended the Anglican church on top of the hill which towered over the surrounding landscape, where he was baptised. As a young man he was confirmed, and as he later told me, he really meant it, though he had his doubts about everyone else. Dad really meant everything he ever said or did, and no-one was ever in any doubt about that.
As a married man he attended the Methodist church in the town where he lived with my mother, because that was where her family went, but the differences didn’t matter as much to him as the God who he worshipped. He had no pretensions to singing the hymns well, but genuinely meant it when he said what mattered was to make a joyful noise.
One of his greatest achievements, from my point of view, was buying the home we were brought up in. Dad understood the opportunity when it came up and went down to the estate agents at 6 a.m. armed with a flask of tea to keep him warm. Nobody was going to beat him to the counter and pay for that house. So we lived like kings, by English standards, in a house with two rooms we never found any use for until my grandmother lived with us, had a choice of dining and living rooms, a big bedroom each, a decent garden on one side, a yard at the back and what seemed like a prairie at the other side.
I have lived a very strange life and this must often had bothered dad. When mother was dying, I was heartbroken that she would die without seeing me reach my goals. The Lord told me that they never mattered at all to her; she only ever wanted me to try the best that I could. Today I found out from my sister that dad’s verdict on my new life was “I am glad that David has found his place in the world”. Only now do I understand. Dad got one job and stuck at it and had one wife and stayed with her. Finally I have my feet set on the ground and I fit. I think that was all that he ever wanted, though I never realised it until he was dead.
Well then, if he was happy that I had done all that he wanted to please him, and my mother only ever asked that I try my best, why do I have to do everything the very best that it can ever be done? Why don’t I settle for anything less? Why don’t I set achievable targets and be glad with them? Maybe because dad always tried to do his work the very best it could be done and didn’t really understand not trying to do so. I shall now never know exactly why, but he may well have had this in mind:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.” (Colossians 3:23-4).
That was how he did his job.
If I have dreamed bigger dreams, then that is because I got the education he never had. But perhaps in truth there is no bigger dream than to do an honest day’s work, be faithful to your wife, tell the truth, and die without regrets. All other things will pass; Dad did all of those things.