Morpethroad

Weave a scene (or two) from your life. Who is your Doppelganger? So, who is going to play YOU in your biopic? Big star? Rising light? Cross-over from sports/music? Someone known for comedy or pathos? Your supporting cast members are . . . ? Director? Have fun with your script and your casting! What scenes do you choose to portray? Genre – serious or serio-comic or downright slapstick. Medium – film, theatre, documentary, mockumentary?

It was going to be a big night.

Our best dresses and suits was out, everything ironed and pressed, bodies washed and scrubbed and every piece of finery we could muster shined and polished for the big night.

Dad was a bag of nerves to say the least.

He never gave a moments thought as he went through life that his life was anything more than what he had been dealt.

He was by modern standards a humble man. He worked all his life and he worked on weekends at the football canteen, the girls netball canteen and every working ‘b’ organised around the place. He was what we all referred to as community man.

He thought as his live gravitated towards retirement, that he would enjoy the time he now had to indulge in a few of his pet hobbies, a bit of fishing in the river, cooking his own version of the humble biscuit and running around the town doing odd jobs for his kids and now their kids.

But everything changed in the last year of his employment when the ABC Country Wide program came round and made a documentary about him. When it was aired it received such favourable praise it was decided to appoint a screenwriter to make a film script of his life.

Dad had been to Vietnam and suffered PTSD from his experiences there, not that you’d ever know. I think that is why he was always busy so he didn’t have to remember.

When mum died in 1983 he was left with five little kids and a mortgage. How he made ends meet I never fully appreciated until I was much older. Dad was just dad, a man of commitment who stayed up late at night doing things I never bothered to ask about but later discovered his cooking skills were such that the bakery in town had a standing order each day for his fairy cakes and scones. So every night after we kids had gone to bed dad cooked and then slept. He also worked at the sale yards as the chief roustabout. How he managed on such a small amount of sleep I could never understand but dad wasn’t a man to complain and always had a bright and cheery face for us each morning when we came out for breakfast.

Dad insisted on weekends we all played a sport and he was keen for us all the play the same one as that meant he could watch us and work in the respective canteens.

Tonight though we were going to the premiere of the film about his life. The film called “A Tough Nuts Day” was opening in the small cinema in our town.

Added to that was we had to attend a reception at the Town Hall with the Mayor and the leading cast members of the film. Dad had always been circumspect about who was playing him and we were all very keen to meet him. After all we all knew who he was, the many films he had been in and we all agreed he was an excellent choice to play dad. Though before going that night we did have to educate dad about the actor playing him.

I have to say I have never seen my dad so nervous as he was that night. He had his one and only suit re-fitted as he had grown a little around the middle since he last wore it and he even went out and bought himself a new shirt and tie.

A liberal sprinkling of aftershave and off we went.

Dad was quite surprised I have to say when introduced to the polite man playing him in the movie. But let me assure you, Hugh Jackman was the gentleman I always suspected him of being and the ideal man to play my dad.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/04/07/tale-weaver-60-star/