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The holiday to Victoria in the 1980s was probably our biggest family holiday as kids. Dad rented a fold down caravan which we towed behind us, and we stayed in that on our journeys. We stayed at places like Creswick caravan park, and visited the Dinosaur
park there, and some other places as well. Bendigo was visited as well as Ballarat, were we went to Sovereign Hill, the old Gold Mines. Dad did all the driving in those days (mum never got a license) and Dad would always sit in the driver's seat with mum
nearly every time in the seat alongside him. In latter years there may have been some minor exceptions to this rule, but none that I can recall from memory. Dad always took care of the oil for the car and I remember often him testing the oil level for
the car in his mechanics of taking care of the car. He probably did this a lot on our Victorian holiday, and one thing we did a lot on such trips was play a lot of cards. Dad liked Euchre, but mum liked Rummy. As little kids we played snap and fish a lot,
but moved on from that in later years. Like the Milton trips in the holiday home we stayed in, we were very together as a family, and lived in each other's company constantly. Nothing escaped mum's notice, and she always ensured we had clean clothing
and looked our best. The number of times she probably combed my hair when I was young would have been numerous. Dad himself was not an overly affectionate father when it came right down to it. He was in his very old age, a very kind and loving old man,
who was probably doing his very best then to show proper love to his family. But mostly growing up he was a caring and thoughtful father, perhaps a little distant from the kids as they grew, but always responsible with them. I was a lot closer to my
mother Mary in those years, and always have been closest to my mum of all people, generally, and Dad and I didn't talk a huge amount over my life, but when I was quite young he was definitely daddy who took care of us all. In the latter teens, though, I
would hardly have cared very much, more concentrating on my gang friends from the arcade. In the early years in Canberra in the 1990s I probably talked to dad a little bit more about things, but I was mostly in my own world in those days, lost in
depression and heavy metal, and didn't really have time for anyone really. But Dad would take me places, and he helped me out when I needed to go to job interviews and things by driving me there. I remember specifically a telemarketers job in Fyshwick he
took me for, though I didn't really bother to try and get the job properly, mainly a requirement fulfilled on my job diary to get my next payment from social security, because I really wanted to just go to CIT in a few months from then anyway, and was
just bullshitting about looking for work. I would simply ring up those ads which had jobs with phone numbers, ask if they had filled them, which they usually had, and asked them to take my details, so that I could put that on my job diary. Really, though,
I just wanted to study at CIT, so didn't care at that stage. But If I had ever been offered a job I would have taken it – it just never happened because I had no real experience or qualifications. For those years in the early 90s I only talked to Dad,
and ignored mum completely for 5 years, not talking to her at all except once on the phone when I had to, because I was ringing to get dad to pick me up from southside TAFE. I don't really recall much of what I probably talked to dad about in those days.
He was in retirement, and spent most of the time at home with mum, probably watching a lot of TV and just pottering around the house. Though the Parkinsons sort of came in around then some time, and things were starting to be noticed on shakings and
things. In the mid 90s, after my crisis, I disappeared off to various group houses and flats of my own for about 4 to 5 years, and I didn't visit home a huge amount in those years. But I did drop in from time to time, and occasionally stayed there in
between moves and things. I was taught judgementalism of Catholicism by many of the Pentecostals I ran with at the time, which went to my head a bit, but later on in Noahidism all that nonsense gradually died away. It was nothing but protestant hype and
winging as far as I am concerned, and did not relate to the real world and the actual way catholics did in fact live their life. Just bullshit from pride-filled biblical zealots who really thought their biblical devotions and works made them something
special. A load of cobblers as far as I am concerned now, but I do give them a break because they are studious of the bible and do maintain good moral standards as people, even though irrationally judgemental. My friends Chris White and Paul Saberton are
still pumped up on that hype, and I don't really rebuke them on it, as they just argue biblically ideas from revelation and, from experience, I am just wasting my breath to differ with them anyway. They don't really care about the facts of the situation,
and follow 'Two Babylons' ideas of Hyslop wether he proved his case or not. But Chris and Paul are kind and loving people, just stuffed up with biblical zealotry as far as I am concerned. In many ways Paul is very grounded, but he needs to live in the
real world for a time. Dad, on the other hand, lived in the real world his whole life, as did mum, and had a far more universal approach and understanding on life, much akin to the way Catholicism which means universal, likes to operate. I had a good
grounding growing up, got into pentecostalismand saw the point some of them were driving at with various passages of scripture, but they push it to the extreme, and are not really in touch that much with the real world, nor try to be. The Devil'
splayground as far as many of the zealot pentecostals are concerned. God love em. Someone has to. Dad never really spoke to me about protestant christians, although Luther was mentioned a little bit as well as King Henry starting the Anglican church, but
Mum and Dad didn't really say much about the other churches or worry about them much, although mum did say to me occasionally that if she hadn't been a catholic she would have been in the Salvation Army. Perhaps that says a lot. I found out, from
conversations later, that dad did know passages in his bible well enough, and knew some standard catholic interpretations of some passages on philippians I was discussing with him one time in his old frailty. He knew how to answer as well according to
his faith and saw his point, though I still disagree with his earthly views (whatever he believes now I don't know, because I hope he is in heaven) that the New Testament or the early church ever taught the Trinity. But obviously the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit is what Cyril Daly solidly believed in all his life most likely. Parents and children don't always agree, but they should always love each other, and I think we managed that well enough when all is said and done.

In the Macarthur years dad became gradually older and older and, by the time I was finally starting to grow up and learn about people and loving them and respecting them, he had become a very old man, beset with Parkinson's, who was sometimes difficult
to communicate with properly. Oh, we talked from time to time over the years, but in some ways I never really got the opportunity to know him well enough, which is possibly because of the big distance in age between us. Yet I have always respected my
father, and really do miss him a lot. I continue to pray for him quite regularly now, as I do for others of my family in heaven. I hope to meet them when this earthly life of mine passes, and catch up a lot and really have a good old yarn with the old
man about life and everything 'Daly'. Really, everyone has the best dad in the world, but mine is VERY suitable for Daniel Daly, and I would never consider trading him, nor my mum either. I admire them and respect them, and while we may have different
faiths, I know they take God very seriously. I am proud of my parents. I love them both, very deeply, and need them forever in my life, and pray to God they will always be there.

Dad had tools in his tool boxes and out in the carport shed we have 2 metal cabinets full of odds and ends and things. Dad was no great organizer of things, but neither was he disorganized. Mostly a regular type of guy who would usually put things back
in their right place, and with things like drill bits and pieces he would never leave them out but ensure they were packed away responsibly, like he did for all his tools. It's just that on the shelves were he put things they wouldn't necessarily always
go into the same place. But they were always packed away appropriately. We still have as of today lots of wires and cables and all his tools and things, all out in the carport, and since by brother Matthew passed on last year, that stuff is basically
left to me and perhaps Greg, who I doubt will be terribly fussed over it. But there are a lot of memories in those old things, and some times I sit out in the carport, even now in winter, just to be out of the house and feeling busy, even if I am just
sitting there. All things considered, dad was an all round sort of a guy, with a blokey sort of aspect to him, but also a very academic one also. His work reflected that, being a technician for Telecom. His mind, like my brother Gregory's, was very
mathematical and scientifice and while I myself have abilities in these areas, I am clearly stronger on things like Literature and Religion than Gregory, while he is stronger on Economics and Maths and Science, and we have about the same talent at music.
It's not that we don't have the others strengths, its just that we don't pursue them a great deal. For example, Greg has written some fiction, but doesn't pursue it. Like I have said, it's like each of the 3 of Cyril's boys got a different share of his
own qualities. Remembering back to Cooma years, I can't see Dad in my head a huge amount, but he was doing things often like mowing the lawn and having cups of tea with mum and guests and driving us to church and things. He watched TV regularly with the
family, and we as a family watched a lot of Friday night and Saturday night movies together back in the 80s. In Canberra years, in his retirement, TV was a strong reality of his life. He did readbooks, and we have a family library full of various tomes,
and he would often be looking at a book on Ireland or some such subject, and then he would be getting fed his dinner for, with his ongoing parkinsons problems, he faded away gradually with older age. He would laugh at the simpsons, in which he
appreciated the sarcasm, but he had limits in what he thought was appropriate TV. Strangely, when I probably should have talked to him the most, coming into my 20s, I was living out of home in pentecostal group houses, and, by the time I should have been
getting to know my dad, it seemed he had become too old, and too frail, and the mind, while it was there, couldn't get past the body so easily. We didn't have any great intellectual conversations in our life, as we didn't talk on any great subjects at
all hardly, but there was an odd chat about religion later on, when I was Pentecostal. I am now wise enough to know that it didn't really matter who was right and wrong on that issue, as Dad kept Catholic faith perfectly well as any Pentecostal kept
biblical faith. Dad went to church every sunday, but I never really saw him reading the bible as such. It wasn't his thing. Instead it was sunday missals and newsletters and booklets on catholicism, rather than a great scriptural devotion although I do
know that he had read the thing. Later on, as he got frail, he still insisted on trying to confess his sins to a priest, and mum got a priest around from time to time, and he confessed, but she said to him he was so old and that God didn't need to hear
them. She was probably right for the old man. The wheelchair was the main thing for his older age, and we pushed him all over the place and around various places on outings here and there, especially down to Cooma and Chakola and places like that. Dad
was merciful man, and he had great love for his children's wellbeing. I know he hoped that Matt would get married one day, for I remember him reflecting on some of my words on the subject, and I bought my brother a ring recently, and sacrificed it to
heaven, like I did for 3 of my uncles, just in case they need them, you know. For I have heard you might just need to own a ring if you want to propose later on in the heavenlies, and they are not that easy to come by. Dad loved us all, and prayed for us
regularly, and I continue to pray for all members of the family also, using psalms especially, for all of us, praying regularly throughout the year for all the members of our family and extended family and friends also. I really do miss dad quite a lot
now, and really look forward to seeing him again when I pass on one day. He was the foundation of my life, and his example on decency and responsibility will always be part of my cherished memories for my old man. I guess, if I was asked to describe my
dad in 1 word, I would use the word 'quiet' to describe Cyril Aloysius Daly. He was certainly conservative and faithful and loving and kind, and a lot of other virtues as well, but he was more than anything else 'Gentle' and above that 'Quiet'. He was
not a ruffian of a man, had a calm demeanour, the quiet type of guy, who worked carefully and with fidelity to get the job done, and didn't spend an eternity bragging about it later. He was a wonderful old fella.

Various tools dad owned included hammers, saws, hacksaw blade, screwdrivers of various kinds, drills and drill bits including a manual hand rotating one, digging fork, digging spade, pick, axes, block buster's, ladders, trailers, lots of various nuts and
bolts in jars, plenty of nails, files, whetting stone, alan keys, pliars, wrenches, spanners, cutters, electric sander and all sorts of other things, and bits and pieces of things, especially electronic things. In his desk he had things like hundreds of
staples and pens and pins and safety pins and things. We still have the desk, which we got when he was in Cooma, and mum uses it now. I think some of his old files are still in there, and the photographic equipment is still there, the really old stuff.
When he worked at the brick Telecom building in Cooma, I would often visit after school or sometimes on Saturdays for a little while when he brought me and often Greg and Matt in. I would wander around the big electronic boards full of wiring, or type
away at a writer thing dad said I could write on, or drink water from the water fountain, which I just about always did. Dad usually sat quietly in the partitioned off mini-office area in the main section of the building, were he did his thing, and I
always liked looking at the cool electronic calculator he kept from the 1970s. Matt inherited that calculator, but its gone now. Dad would discipline us as kids, but he never got really angry, or very rarely with us, even though we were a brat pack of
kids. It all worked out as we got older though and the family stuck together through thick and thin. I am sure he learned how to raise children as a work in progress just as much as anything he he had learned from a book or his own family experiences,
but I think, looking back, he did a pretty good job at it. Mum and himtook to the task with responsibility and almost expertise. Mum had been a nanny in England, and had some training looking after children, so she always knew when we could have a break
and when we had to be disciplined, and looking back I feel they usually worked together as a team to resolve the various problems which cropped up. It seems they likely always talked about it to resolve the issues, and while mum usually directed us in
what was to be done, it seemed everything was talked over with Cyril beforehand. They worked together well as a team raising children, and despite the difficulties and challenges, I think the world of them both for the wisdom they were able to impart,
more from their examples than anything else. If and when I have children of my own one day, I know the kind of responsiblities I will be entrusted to and, because of mum and dad, the kind of ways and lessons I know to be able to handle them. I guess, if
I really have a problem with Cyril Daly, is that he has passed on, now, when I am at the kind of age which wants to chat with dad and ask him questions about life and really develop a good friendship. For so much of my life it was Daniel-centric vision,
but I am starting to get over myself and see the rest of the world, and I really do wish I'd had another decade or so with my old man, just to nut out his wisdom on life, and to have a drink of beer with him, and uncle Kevin, and chat about the war and
the cricket and old grandpa Peter Paul and life in general. Yes, if I have one complaint, is that, even though he lived to 84, he was gone to soon for this son of a gun. But life decides when, and I thank God our final time together was a blessing, and
that he died in peace, content in a good home with a good family. He's buried at Queanbeyan lawn cemetry, with Matt now on top of him, and just the other day mum paid for another plot, which can have someone placed on top of it as well, which is for
herself and myself when I finally pass on. It's not the same column going along, but it is in the same row I think, and we are not far from Dad and Matt. It's all paid for and the family knows so, when I rest in peace myself, I won't be too far from the
man who gave me life in the first place. And that must be a good thing.

There was one time in Cooma, when I made a gate between the house and the garage (the shed). We had what was probably the side of an old cot or something, and I used bolts or fasteners of some kind and then, finding a chain which would support it,
connected it to the house so that it swung as a gate. It lasted a few years or so, and I was proud of it and, from memory, I think dad paid me some money for doing the job although I never asked for the money. There was another time when I cleaned out
the garage voluntarily, not thinking of money, organising everything and putting it all neatly away, and dad paid me for that as well. But when I had put a lot of comics on the account at the newsagency, even though I wasn't supposed to, mum and dad
allowed me to do some chores to pay them off a bit. I think I probably overcharged them for the work I did, but I did do a number of chores to work it off, and they left it at that, and didn't hassle me about it. Of course, they probably knew I pinched a
fair few pennies from mum's purse, but it was always grace which covered it. They didn't judge me too harshly. They were merciful and forgiving parents. I look back now and realize that dad had a caring heart, and he rewarded work and effort we did for
the family. They were occasions I did think voluntarily for the most part, not expecting payment, but they paid me anyway. It was very kind of them, especially with 5 kids and what must have been a tight budget as mum stayed home looking after us all. I
never went without clothes and food, though clothes had initially been hand me downs from Matt when I was a bit younger and he was still bigger than me. We got new shoes pretty regularly, and I was always in my school clothes, and they were always clean
and washed and ready for school. The lunches were predominantly sandwiches, but some times we had lunch orders from the canteen, which were always my favourite days. They obviously did well balancing the family budget, and we had many regular holidays,
looking back in fact it seemed we were always away some where doing this and that. There were a lot of coast trips, especially Terrigal and Tathra, and numerous visits to the Newmerella river and the Murrumbidgee, but we went to other places as well. Mum
was usually the instigator in getting us out and about, and she said she often had to push dad to get us out somewhere, but he never really complained, and let mum handle the organising of those things, but, like he said, he was always there with us, and
he watched over us as a responsible parent ought to do. With a moderate sized catholic family, they obviously budgeted well, and with his superannuation payout he was able to pay back his brothers for some of the money we got on house loans to buy the
families first homes. When we moved to Canberra, we went into a payback interest only loan for many years from our bank, for the Macarthur house, but that was all finally paid off last year, and Cyril can attest to having afforded the family a Canberra
home, largely through his own fidelity to his work. A responsible man, who provided properly for his family's needs – if anything else, that is an enduring legacy of the life of Cyril Aloysius Daly, as much a positive and good witness as any family man
can hope to attain. He drove us everywhere, and he would even come and pick me up from Peter Dradrach's down town in the later 80s, after I had been at the Games Arcade or playing cricket at the Rotary oval nets in cooma, and he didn't need to do that,
as I usually walked home from these things, but he did do it from time to time anyway, as he had done earlier on picking me up from Andrew Pighins house in Cooma West after work, as I went there after school. He never once roused at me for doing this
from memory, never complained to me that I was too much of a problem, and always treated me with care and respect, and was a greatly caring father because of it. One of the things I felt later on in life is that he never really taught me any great moral
lessons of the family as it where, but he did give me 16 years in Catholic church every Sunday, and his silent witness, retrospectively, is more than enough now for me to learn from his example of the Godly father and parent he was to me. He was a great
dad, and I will always look fondly on how he did raise us, for I am well experienced now in how many parents of especially latter generations can fail so readily on these challenges of life. Good on you dad.

In 1967 dad was living in Jindabyne with a friend, working for PMG/Telecom, and he went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes in France were he met mum and a lady called Maeve. He had an interest in Maeve, but nothing ever eventuated, but he also met mum and the
became friends. He returned home, and mum returned home to Hull, were she was staying the Presbytery of St Stephens at the time, looking after a priest, and dad corresponded with mum. He eventually proposed in a letter, and she said no initially, but
after a while she said yes, and he came over to England and married her in 1968. They came to live in Jindabyne then, were they stayed, although they lived for a brief while in Braidwood. Matthew and Brigid were born while the family was living in
Jindabyne, but then they moved to Berridale in early 1972 (I think) and I was born later on that year on the 20th of November back in Hull, because mum wanted to go home to have help from Grandma with the birth and early times of the new baby. In
Berridale one of the friends of dad (who I remember) was Joe Scotland, who lived up the road in a more southern area of Berridale. The Luchetta's and the Lindstroms were good friends in the Berridale years, and I still remember the Berridale Catholic
church intimately and the statues which were for a while kept in a vault in the ceiling. The church has a bell tower which is still there today, and Berridale is much the same as it was then, still around the same size and population and housing. Of
course, next door to us in 7 Bent Street in Berridale was the Anglican churchpresbytery, with the Anglican Church at the end of Bent street. Dad would take the trip into Cooma each day to work at the Telecom building in Cooma, and while there had been
options of buying a house in Jindabyne, they eventually bought 6 Bradley street in Cooma in the late 1970s/Early1980s, and the whole family moved into town. As I have said previously, the Berridale house had a double garage, and we kept chickens and had
a dog called Toby (which disappeared one day) who was a little terrier, and had all our early adventures tromping around Berridale town. There was a tennis court across the road (a variant of which features in one of my 'Harvest' stories in the
Chronicles of the Children of Destiny), but we never played on the court, and I wasn't sure if it was private or the town courts. Mum was really the centre of my world in those years, but dad was too, and we were a close-knit family who did our thing,
and it was one of those lucky idyllic childhoods, before the schooling years began, and a harder world started becoming known. I think, in many ways, in such a small town, I was shielded from some of the harsher elements in life, for it was an idyllic
little town, with beautiful summers, were everything was fascinating and interesting in the town, especially the weird bugs in the back yard which were native (it seems) to the region, and with the pool and the cannon in the park and Anzac day marches
dad marched in each year, and plenty of brothers and sisters, and wonderful christmases were pillow cases were full of presents, filled a young life with imagination and happiness and very good times. But school started in the late 70s, and the boys at
St Pats were tough, and I wasn't quite ready for the real world I soon found myself in. But, regardless of all that, there was a firm and protective hand from Cyril Daly on his family, watching over us, making the right decisions for us, and as when we
came to Canberr in 1990, the move to Cooma in 1980 seemed like a progression of sorts, and in hindsight, the wisdom of God to lead us on to bigger and better things. Even if those things had a whole host of new challenges associated with them. I think
dad probably liked Jindabyne and Berridale, for he worked all over the snowy mountains region with his work, and in Cooma he was living a life in a town he was well used to after his earlier years in the Sydney region of his youth. As I have said, dad
didn't seem to attract a lot of personal friends to home very much, mostly friends of what I would call the family, but he was always at church each Sunday, and it seems, now, looking back, his friends and colleagues of the church were the main part of
his life, especially the workmates at St Vinnies were he worked in various capacities, and were mum occasionally did some volunteer work sorting clothes and things into the various bins. St Vinnies used to be on Sharp Street, but moved to its current
location on Vale Street back then, and so much of my childhood memories are of entering the store and asking mum 'Can I have this? Can I have this?' We'd get a lot of stuff we wanted, but not every single time, and we always had nice toys and things to
play around with from the charity. Even now I shop very regularly at Vinnies here in Tuggeranong especially, and while I am no longer a Roman Catholic, if I were, I could imagine I would be heavily involved with such an organisation. The main friends of
the family in Cooma years were The Collins across the street, who also were Catholic, and the Bryants and the Torley's. The Bryants and the Torleys are still part of our lives, and we see Gerard and his family now every now and again, who live in
Theodore, down south in Tuggeranong. Jill Torley is a long friend of the family, but she is now in Western Australia, yet sends regular correspondence and cards and things to members of the family. Dad got along well, mainly it seems, with these sorts of
people as his company for they were regular guests in our household, and, looking back, while he had a rare beer at home, he was not the kind of guy who ever really went out drinking with his mates at the pub. It wasn't part of dad's makeup. Oh, I am
sure there was the odd beer at a pub with a co Telecom worker now and again, but I never once remember him going off to get pissed, as it wasn't part of his makeup. He was always a sober man, and for that I am eternally grateful for his good example.


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