| Chapter 1: | Revisiting Fred Ball: Reminisces on One of The Damned |
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He was a gardener, who later became head gardener, as depicted in my father’s novel A Breath of Fresh Air, but was from a long line of ironsmiths, builders, wheelwrights, and domestic servants. Although my father had been born in Hastings, the family moved early in his childhood and he was educated at a village school in Battle, Sussex. He was over the moon to be reunited with his father whom he adored. I remember the profound effect Granddad had on my father, and this could be seen later in quotations used in his semiautobiographical work, as yet unpublished, “To Live Like a Man”, about his life as a young adult. The title of the book originated from something his father told him when he departed for India: “you’re the man now son, while I’m away”. As he watched his father walk away, just before he went out of sight, he turned to his son, waved, and shouted, “to live like a man, son”.
Religion played quite a part in Fred’s life as a child. According to the “Old Gal”, Granny was overlooking the fact that her children ought to be attending church. The “Old Gal” was the owner of a large country house and employed Granddad as head gardener. Granny thought she had better comply and found herself not only attending the little church, in Telham, East Sussex, but also playing the organ for the congregation. When Granny decided to wallow, reminiscing as to how the war had consumed her husband, her early childhood, and all sorts of other emotions that Fred and his siblings had no understanding of, she would lock herself in their tiny cottage sitting room and weep quite loudly while playing the harmonium. Her children, including my father, would disappear to the garden and, because it occurred on a regular basis, became accustomed to her behaviour. My father went on to expand his interest in religion, dipping his toe into many different philosophies and types of religious belief.