Chris Lusty - Rest in Peace
This was supposed to be a blog about diving and my experiences with my new club - Bermondsey BSAC 42 - but although I had set it up I hadn't actually got round to writing anything just yet.
Then I heard from my Mum that my Dad died on New Years Eve, 2009. So all of a sudden I had a lot of thoughts flying around my head and this seemed a good place to put them. A lot of people know him but for anyone who didn't I thought it might be good to let them know as well.
Mum says he had a stroke and collapsed and was taken to hospital. Not such a great start to the New year for her or the rest of the family.
I'm in Korea at the moment with my wife and her family, we've both had a bit of a hard last few months so the idea of getting away from the UK was kind of appealing and we had the time but now I regret not being around to be with my Mum. I know she says its ok and she has people around but its not quite the same.
Its kind of hard to believe that he's gone really, he was one of those constants that just was. I know he'd been ill for quite a while with Glandular Fever but he was past that and when I last spoke to him was feeling better but still tired. Its just hard to accept as he always seemed so indomitable.
I know it must have been a bit of an ordeal for him marrying mum and taking on us 3 boys and we weren't always that great which I am sure is no great surprise. Despite that though he stuck with it and when they had Elspeth and Abigail I think that helped us all feel even more like a big family.
Even though we weren't always that helpful he was always there to do things for us and I still remember my passing out parade from Bovington when he and mum came down to collect me and watch the parade and their current car was a little Datsun and by the time we had packed all my stuff in it you couldn't see out of any of the back windows and just about fit us all in.
When he got made redundant from Baileys in Dursley after all those years as a print setter I think we all wondered just what he would turn his hand to and he had a couple of different jobs. One of the highlights of that for me was my 18th birthday when we were having my party at Beechenhurst with a barbecue and Mum said he was bringing some people from work. He ended up bringing about 10-15 of the Eastern European workers from the fruit picking place he was at and they all just joined in, it was great.
So he decided to go into Psychology and then spent a couple of years at college and working to get his qualifications and then worked in Cinderford with Adults with Learning Disabilities. Here he really seemed to thrive and whenever I spoke to him he always had some amusing story about something that had happened at work or things that were going wrong. He had always been a dab hand in the garden and our garden at home always had plenty growing in it and he took this with him to work where he got the clients to start working in there own green house and eventually got them going out in the community working on larger projects. He even became a councillor for the Coleford Town Council and I know was well known and well respected across the Forest for all the help and time he was willing to give when asked.
At the end of the day though, he was my Dad and I'm going to miss him.
