Tall Ships Go

"I hear your voice and it keeps me from sleeping,why must it always be dreams when your voice come to me"

Tall Ships Go-Big Country

October 27th is one of my least favourite days on the calender,it's the anniversary of my father's death,this year marks 26 years since I came home from work and found he'd died in his sleep from a heart attack.

There's seldom a day goes by I don't think about him the expression"the apple don't fall far from the tree"is very very apt where Kevin and I are concerned,both the good and the bad of my father can be found in me.

By no means a Rhodes scholar Kevin taught me some of the greatest life lessons I'll ever get:

"Don't be a punk and cause trouble,but always be a man and stand up for yourself"

"If you can't be yourself,don't be anybody"and perhaps the most telling given his early death

"Life's too short and we're only passing through and we're never coming back so we better make the most of it"

The Big Country lyrics are on his headstone,a week b4 he died Big Country released their second album "Steel Town" and in an interview in the NME{New Musical Express} Stuart Adamson went through the album track by track,"Tall Ships Go" was Stuart Adamson's ode to his father, a merchant seaman who was swept off the deck of his ship and drowned at sea,Stuart Adamson said after that the only time he ever heard his father was in his dreams and it seemed the ideal sentiment for my own father's headstone.

As ever I visited St John's church a lit a candle for him and in a sign of divine intervention I exited St John's to find the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out allowing me to get my 10 miler in for the evening,even from beyond the grave my father is still having an effect on my running,thanks Pop gone but NOT forgotten