Man enough

One of my favourite activities on Sunday afternoons, as a child, was to comb my Dad's hair. He had what is called in Italian, a riportino, or in English, "a comb over". This meant he had long hair on the top of his head.

At Christmas, we were often given an enormous box of chocolates, which had a huge, pin satin bow, tied round it. I would spend hours carefully combing my Dad's hair and then tying it up in a topknot , fastened with the pink bow. We always had some sort of sport on the television, on Sunday afternoons. Still today, I find the repetitive roaring noise of the Formula One cars, racing round and round, or the football commentary, with the different cheers, depending on who has scored, extremely comforting and reassuring. My Dad would sit, reclined in his chair, feet up on the poof (yes, that's right), with the newspaper held in front of him, while I combed his hair. The end result, if taken today with an iPhone, would have gone viral in minutes. He looked wonderful.

I'd better say here, that my Dad was quite a character, full of fun and a good sport. He would even be so bold as to answer the door, with my hairstyles.
To give you an idea of how we all saw him, I'll quickly tell you an anecdote of his later years.
Sadly, at a certain point, he had to have a carer. She was very kind and looked after my Dad as though he were her own. She liked to dress him well, with the shirt and tie, that he had always worn. I think he only ever owned two jumpers. One day, my Mum, handed her a pink shirt. The carer was aghast. She couldn't put a pink shirt on him, pink was for girls. "He is man enough, for a pink shirt", came the calm response.