Thursday 4th February
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Happy birthday Hank
You would be 89 today
Miss you x
💖❤️💖
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February the Fourth
World Cancer Day
Striking our family
In the worst kind of way
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Hank 4.2.1932 – 5.10.2009 Pancreatic Cancer
Frank 18.1.1985 – 12.3.2015 Testicular Cancer
Me Metastatic Malignant Melanoma
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Thinking of you Hank: father gone too soon
Thinking of you sweetie darling Angel son
.
xxxxx
Porthmeor Beach
With many surfers
Monday 5th October.Remembering my father Hank.
4.2.1932 – 5.10.2009
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We didn’t know
We were making memoriesWe just thoughtWe were having fun.
An RAF fighter jet pilot, sailor, skiier, swimmer, water polo player, golfer, orator, cook, writer, sommelier, World traveller, painter, actor, model….
A little more about my father…..
.
Eleven years ago today
Pancreatic cancer
.
Frank and Hank
My son My father
Fly free
xxxxxx
Hank and I
Father and Mother
Hank and I
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Sunday 16th June
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Happy Father’s Day
To my Dad
Who didn’t want to be called
Daddy, Dad, Father, Pops
So, Hank it was
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Happy Father’s Day
To my husband
Who has always been
Daddy, Dad, Father, Pops
Your sons love you lots
.
Frank and Luke
Our boys forever
A loving family
Always together
.
xxx
My father and I
Hank and I
Gary with Frank and Luke in Australia
Gary and Luke
Gary and Frank
Sunday 4th February
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Even though I feel alone
You are always by my side
I know you’re walking with me
You will always be my guide
The love you placed within my heart
Makes me think of you with pride
.
Love you forever
My Angel son
Forget you never
My Angel father
xxxxxx
My father Hank. Today would have been his birthday. Pancreatic cancer took him in 2009
Thursday 5th October
Remembering my father Hank.
4.2.1932 – 5.10.2009
“If there is another world, he lives in bliss
If not another, he made the most of this”
An RAF fighter jet pilot, sailor, skiier, swimmer, water polo player, golfer, orator, cook, writer, sommelier, painter, actor, model….
A little more about my father…..
Eight years ago today.
Pancreatic cancer.
Frank and Hank
My son My father
Fly free
xxxxxx
Saturday 4th February
Happy birthday to my father
A life well-lived and so fast-paced
He would be eighty five today
Always fun, never straight-laced.
And on World Cancer Day…………
My father ~ Pancreatic Cancer
My son ~ Testicular Cancer
Me ~ Metastatic Malignant Melanoma
Missing you my Angel father Hank
Missing you my Angel son Frank.
xxxxxx
Hank and I. August 2008
Hank and Prince Charles
4.2.1932 – 5.10.2009
Remembering when we were in Scotland and HRH Prince Charles was taken on a two hour, supersonic flying sortie with Hank in a Phantom fighter-bomber. The flight included an air-to-air refuelling exercise with a Victor tanker, taking on 1200 gallons of fuel. They flew as high as 40,000 feet and as low as 1000 feet, making a pass over Balmoral, (reported at the time, as an ‘extrovert flourish’).
Hank and his three children ~ me, my sister and brother ~ early 70’s
Hank and my mum. Receiving the bar to his AFC
Phantoms over Scotland
Friday 14th October
Today is Dad’s birthday, and I’m sure you would have wished him a Happy Birthday in your own cheeky and mischievous way.
We missed you being here today; celebrating birthdays is really not the same anymore. It’s all a bit low key now. Rather muted and quite sombre. Almost as if you’re not allowed to smile and have fun. I know it shouldn’t be that way, and you certainly wouldn’t want it like that, but it just seems disrespectful, or unnerving somehow, to ‘celebrate’, knowing you’re not here to join in.
Thinking of you always.
Missing you like crazy.
Love you forever.
Beloved Angel son.
xxxxxx
Dad, your brother and you. Australia 1990
You, your brother and Dad, climbing trees in our garden. Australia 1991
You and Dad, on your 7th birthday. Merimbula, NSW.
Wednesday 5th October
Seven years ago today, my father passed away from pancreatic cancer.
Here is a little of his story that I wrote last year.
Hank was a big part of our lives every summer when we visited America and the islands, and stayed on his yacht. Starting in 1994 when we went to Bermuda, to Tobago, the Virgin Islands, the Keys, through to 2009 (when he passed away) in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; we always had great adventures.
I hope you and your grandfather meet up for a laugh, a hug, and a long chat about all the good times you spent together.
Frank and Hank.
My son and my father.
Miss you both.
Love you forever.
xxxxxx
Low tide in the harbour this afternoon
Thursday 4th February
Today would have been my father’s eighty fourth birthday.
He succumbed to pancreatic cancer in October 2009.
He was a fighter pilot and flew many different aircraft, all over the world.
The poem, High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, an American, serving with the RCAF, flying spitfires in WWII, seems a very apt and appropriate tribute to my father.
My father, flying the lightning in the foreground, for 56 squadron
My father visiting the Canadian RAF, in front of a starfighter
My father bringing the fleeing Shah of Persia to England in an English Electric Lightning
My father, in front of his F4 phantom
Phantoms, 43 squadron in formation
My father, in his phantom, shadowing a Russian 'bear'
My father with members of the Blue Angels aerobatic team
My father, teaching Prince Charles to fly the phantom
56 squadron in Cyprus. My father exiting his lightning
My father, on board his yacht Rum Raisin
Hank n Frank, Tobago, 2002
In the last picture, here you are with your grandfather Hank.
(He disliked the names of Dad, Daddy, Father, Grandfather; so everyone called him Hank.)
We had so many wonderful sailing adventures with him on board his yachts.
Give each other a hug.
Miss you, my Angel father, Hank.
Love you, my Angel son, Frank.
Flying high together.
xxx xxx
Wednesday 14th October
Another first…….
Dad’s first birthday without you being here.
Without your card, or morning birthday greetings.
Dad missed you a lot today.
It was so quiet without you.
We remember so many good times together.
Dearest Angel son.
We grow older, and you remain forever thirty years old.
Just wish it wasn’t so.
Love you forever.
xxxxx
You and Dad. Bahia Honda State Park, The Keys
You and Dad. Universal Studios
You and Dad. Seuss Landing, Universal
You and Dad. Hawaiian Luau, Sea World
You and Dad. Aquatica
You and Dad. Busch Gardens
You and Dad. Christmas Eve, Disney World
You and Dad. Hilton Head Island
You and Dad this morning
Dad and I this afternoon
The Journey of My Left Foot (whilst remembering my son) 