[continued from previous message]

I was talking with Auntie Shirlie, Uncle Stan Daly's wife, about dad. She is quite old now, and her memory is not what it used to be, but she had some comments on dad. Like I said above, she found him a 'Quiet' man. But she added, in her own words, that
he was 'Strange', in the way he would come to dinner with them, and pick at his meal (which was good food) and be very quiet. I kind of feel, thinking about this, it is sort of were myself, Gregory and Matthew, and even little James (Greg's boy) get a
lot of our quirky natures. Dad took lots of photographs and was a scientific and rationale sort of man, but from memory he seemed to express creationism as his viewpoint on origins as opposed to evolution, so from my perspective he really was a sound
thinker on a lot of things. But I can see, from Shirlies statements, were I may get some of my schizophrenia and odd ways about myself also. Dad had parkinson's in later years, which is a lack of dopamine in the brain, wereas with my psychosis I get too
much of that stuff, but it sort of reflects that kind of person who often has those academic qualities associated with him or her, who also has a gifted mind and often odd quirks which people notice about the character. Very often these are quite
religious people, for from my own personal experiences there are a lot of very religious people in mental health circles. Maybe it was something in Dad's DNA, or maybe it was lot more of his strict parenting from an old catholic man who, from Auntie
Shirlies own words today, was quite a domineering personality, but dad was a strictly disciplined man in many ways, and very religious himself on his Catholicism, so had those often different to society aspects of his life which mark him out as different
in some ways. Hopefully special ways. Dad was bright and intelligent, and his religion and occupations throughout life were a vehicle through which he could express that quiet mind and quiet thoughts, and I assume he was mostly a happy enough spiritual
soul, who had a deep appreciation of his faith, and likely a strong respect and devotion to God. We went to church every single Sunday as a family, and dad was very religious about this. My sister Brigid, since Matt's death last year, now goes regularly
to church as well, at Corpus Christi were mum goes and, if I had remained Catholic, the new devotion to God I found again in my early 20s would have been leading me in a very similar pathway of dad and my uncles and grandparents catholic devotion. But I
found the oldest covenant, and focus my energies on Noahide faith. But I am equally as serious about my old man on religion, and have learned to appreciate Catholic faith more so now, seeing it as a development from Judaism in many ways, and dad will not
find me at all slack in my prayers or biblical devotions or writings and discourse on the faith of God Almighty. I believe I have kept the family faith, and while I can't call Jesus Christ or God, I accept him still on a personal human level as a teacher
of Gospel truths, and Torah, my new foundation, is eternal in my heart, the rainbow enduring from my and dad's ancient ancestor, Noah himself. I have an older faith, dad, I will tell him. Older than even old Abraham's. Hope that is good enough for you
old man, but yes I am damn serious about devotion to El Shaddai as well. Yes, dad had a lot of devotion to religion, to put it bluntly, so if you actually knew him, you would know that I was raised in a very religious household, not really a
fundamentalist one in attitudes, probably more in touch with a mainstream focus in society, but definitely one which accepted religion at its heart, and took God seriously when it was time for Church and Godly devotion. Mum calls herself a conservative
liberal, and I think that sums up a lot of our own family's way of doing things spiritually. We take it seriously, but are not TOO dogmatic, and we can live and let live and get along with the world well enough as well. We are a grounded family, easy to
get along with, generally humble and quiet and serious kind of people, but we can enjoy a good laugh like the next fellow. Yes, dad laughed a lot, and enjoyed comedies on TV, especially Dad's Army and the Two Ronnies, but even some of the more modern
comedies in his older age he could have a bit of a chuckle about. As I have said, there were limits, but we are a godly family and, despite our flaws, or perhaps in spite of our flaws, we feel we give a good witness for the faith of monotheism.

Dad liked to watch movies of his era. I have a scrapbook of dad's filled with cutouts (usually from a Catholic newspaper) on old movies of the glory days of Hollywood, which he cut out and stuck into the scrapbook. He took films and had a projector (
which is still in the family with a lot of his old films). He was a photographer as well, and this seemed to have been his main hobby or pastime for his life. We have lots of dad's old books on film and photography, and this is one of the legacies he has
left his offspring. I remember as a kid I also had a scrapbook (an old notebook of dad's) were I took cutouts of footrot flats cartoons from the papers and pasted them in. I guess I may naturally have followed in dad's way of doing things. He liked the
Marx brothers and Laurel and Hardy and things of that era quite a lot, and I remember watching 'Duck Soup' by the Marx Brothers with dad in latter times. He was an older man when he had me (mid 40s) and I always seem to remember dad being an older sort
of man, a little distant in some ways, from an older era. He was conservative, and didn't meet my potential expectations I guess from school that dad's be with it and have mates they drank with and stuff like that. He was too old for that, in reality,
and from a more conservative world. It is just the way it was, and I guess I didn't always connect with him in some ways because of it. A little bit distant in some ways. But his dad was in his mid 40s when he had Cyril as well, and it's like a very old
generation gap separates us all. A different culture and experience of world events, a different appreciation for the struggles in life, because while I have now certainly had my own struggles, I never really saw war as a nation, or depression (which dad
would have seen in his youth) or challenges like that. He would have really known the difficulties in life, and probably worked hard to shield us from those things because of it. I have grown up in Australia in a prosperous era, where recession has been
the main challenge of the early 1990s, but with strong government support for welfare and social initiatives. I haven't had the challenges of life dad had in his own era, and I perhaps take a lot for granted because of it. The world turned many times
over dad's life, living through the 20th century and some of the 21st. He would have seen technologies come and go and new things would have been a constant part of his experiences. He was a technical man, and in Telecom worked with emerging technologies,
but its ironic that, something recent like 'Telex' is now replaced, and so suddenly, and that things come and go, not in lifetimes, but in a matter of a few years, and months even. It must have been a very challenging life to have lived in many ways,
and exciting in many others, and I could well appreciate that he might have often had concerns about staying up to date in his working knowledge and things like that. But whatever challenges came his way, he worked till he retired at 65, and had 38 years
of employment with PMG-Telecom upon retirement. He went the whole distance, and I am proud of him because of it. He knew CD technology in older age, though I never really saw him handle a CD, but he did listen to the music when it was put on, and he
would have been well familiar with computers from the 1970s and early 1980s, probably working with various things. I don't think he had a PC as such at Telecom (not really sure on that), as the exchange was mostly other types of telecommunications
technology of its day, but he would have had to stay abreast with all of that to do his job properly, and it is a credit to him that he managed to do so and not be made redundant. We had a lot of transistors of the old type in the shed (not the radios,
but the transistors which went in televisions and things like that) and I feel he was probably most familiar with earlier technologies of probably the 1960s for the most part, which seemed to be a lot of his textbooks, and 1950s also, and that seems to
be the era of the best of his knowledge, but he pulled through, and kept at it in his job, and managed to do various tasks for Telecom of substantial nature. Obviously, especially in this current era, and even more so in technological industries, the
world changes so very quickly, and it can be frightening to constantly keep up, but thankfully he kept his knowledge relevant enough to maintain his employment, and the weekly or fortnightly wage was always paid, and the family always got by. Again, it
is a credit to him for taking on the challenges of life and seeing them through for the sake of his family.

I have other memories about Cyril Daly, but that will do for now.

All the best.

Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly

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