Towards the end of his career, my father was a TV producer at the British Broadcasting Corporation, also known as the BBC. He produced popular UK science and technology shows like Tomorrow’s World and Horizon. His hobby was drinking. He died one day, from a stroke, at age 45.
According to his new wife of only one year, who seemed to encourage his “drinky poos,” that happened while he was sitting on his bed, playing with the remote control for a new TV. I was eight. Nobody hugged me.
Now I’m 45, the same age that he was when he died.
I remember him taking me to work at the BBC, where I met his secretaries. Apparently he had sex with at least one of them. At least that’s what he revealed to my mother after she informed him that she had started a relationship with their friend whom he had met in rehab, their friend whom they allowed to live in our house rent-free, their friend who later installed himself as our family’s live-in psychopath.
In those days, it was possible to hold down a job at the BBC while drinking so much that stopping suddenly would cause a life-threatening seizure. Apparently, he had production assistants who knew what to do. At work, he showed me the grey, metal stationary cupboard filled with pens and neatly sliced slabs of fresh, clean paper. Since then I have always loved stationary.
