Thomas Harvey 1906 – 1984

I was flicking though some photographs the other day when one taken at a Crime Writers’ Association dinner stopped me in my tracks – Surely my dad wasn’t there, was he? Well, no, he’d died a good few years before and, of course, it was me, looking at little different for the occasion, a little more formal, suit jacket, collar and tie, a little more like him. The likeness I see now every morning in the mirror.

He died thirty two years ago today, my dad, at 78 years of age: the same age I myself will be before the year’s end.

Makes you think …

On holiday in Bucks around 1948 or so, I’m 10 or thereabouts, my dad’s a little over 40.

This is in Nottingham, Lenton to be precise; I’m 40-ish, the same age as my dad in the first photo, and he’s 73 0r 74 and has shrunk a couple of inches.

And just to bring things up to date, this is me with my son, also Tom, in Nottingham earlier this year – Tom just a year or so older than I was in the middle photo and my dad in the first.