Eulogy read by Christine at Alan's memorial service
Remembering Alan
Where do you start to celebrate the life of our dad and grandad, Alan Raymond Ball? Or should I say Tommy? For reasons none of us ever understood, to his workmates at Otis Elevators he was always Tommy.
Then again that was typical of dad, he always did things his own way. He was a one-off that’s for sure.
Dad was born on 24th February 1929, middle child to Margaret and Joe, with an older brother Bertie and younger sister Kathleen. He reminisced often about his childhood in Carr Lane, describing how the family moved there with all their belongings by horse and cart.
He was a pupil at Ellergreen School and before that at Wellesborne Primary School, a member of the school’s football team, the league and cup winners of 1940; football becoming a life-long passion. His education was interrupted by the war but he always had an intellectual curiosity which meant he was interested in people, always curious about life, politics and engineering, always interested in how things work.
Merchant Navy
At 17 dad joined the merchant navy and spent many years sailing the seven seas. Dad was a brilliant story teller and some our favourites are from his days as a merchant seaman. There were tales of suits being made in Hong Kong, of friends jumping ship for a new life in Australia, of the first Levi blue jeans from New York, the Cunard ships, the Blue Funnell Line and of the many friends he made among his ship mates. He often talked of Norman, surely not his real name, a Chinese ship mate who taught dad Mandarin. It was only recently that I learned dad could give his order at the chippy in Mandarin, quite a surprise for staff and customers alike.
My own favourite story was the one about swimming in the Suez Canal in the days when ships had to wait to days to pass through. Dad was enjoying his swim when he was scared out of his skin by seeing a shark. He leapt out of the water only to find it was a dolphin.
I was lucky enough to visit Australia a couple of years ago and was able to sail under the Sydney Harbour Bridge just as dad had done in his youth, that moment was extra special for me. I was seeing what he had all those years ago and it gave me an insight into how wonderful that sight must have been to a 17-year old Liverpool lad.
In his youth dad was an avid motor-cyclist, enjoying camping adventures in Wales and the Lake District, many with his friend Dave. A particular favourite photograph is of dad on his motorbike with his best James Dean pose and rather worryingly, a pint in his hand.
Marriage and children
After the years at sea, dad settled back in Liverpool where he met our lovely mum, and the love of his life, Grace Sheen.
The long garden at the family home featured heavily in dad’s life and ours. Dad spent many long hours out in the garden nurturing his prize-winning dahlias and giving us all the best jobs, pinching out buds and sending us out into the garden at night with a torch to pick off earwigs from the emerging blooms.
Although it seemed perfectly normal at the time, there can’t have been many children in 1960s Huyton whose fathers cultivated grapes in the garden and made their own wine. Later branching out into beer, our house was often filled with strange gurgling sounds coming from dark cupboards, and of course, the occasional explosion.
Dad loved a good day out and we spent many happy summer days in beaches at Hoylake, West Kirby, Formby and Ainsdale. We’d take a picnic and later dad’s home-made portable grill and oven, very ahead of its time when the portable barbecue had not been invented. We look back with pride at his ingenuity and creativity, but at the time we wanted to be the family with the ham sandwiches not the family with the homemade ‘primus-stove metal-oven combo’ cooking sausages.
Dad’s mum, our Nana Ball, also featured large in our lives, helping care for us during school holidays when mum and dad were at work with many fond memories of egg and chips in the tent in Nana Ball’s back garden at Crosswood Crescent with our cousins Carol and Gillian Friebus. Christmas was a time for family, and dad was always keen that we spent time with our cousins, visiting Bertie and Flo in Tarbock Road who always had the biggest Christmas tree you had ever seen, the top always bent over, pushing against the ceiling. Our older cousins, Albert and Evelyn seeming unspeakable glamorous and cool to us younger ones and our cousins John, David and Stephen.
Marrying into the Sheen clan meant that we had the joy of Nanny Sheen, a twinkly-eyed spirited Victorian and loving matriarch of a large extended family with many loving uncles, aunties and cousins for Alison and myself. Last Summer we were lucky enough to all get together with dad taking pride of place sharing his tall tales with the next generation and coining the phrase, the ‘Sheen Gleam’. Originally said of cousin Katie’s youngest, Remiel, I’d like to think we all have a touch of the Sheen Gleam about us. Dad loved this day and talked of it often, counting his blessings at having his own wonderful family and the Sheen clan as well.
Grandchildren
Of course, pride of place, has to go the grandchildren, Alex, Harriet and Ellen. Always interested in their lives, what they were up to, so proud of their many achievements and talents. They all have their own memories of grandad, of visits to Prestatyn, playing miniature golf or walks on the beach of his merciless cheating at family games of Articulate. In later years, dad liked to give the grandchildren what he called ‘Budget Money’, it was just an excuse to give them money but he always made it conditional. He would always set them a riddle, a quiz question or some other challenge before the cash was handed over. This became a treasured tradition and source of great fun, with Alex always knowing the answer.
Otis Elevators
After his years at sea, dad spent the rest of his working life in engineering at Otis Elevators where he worked on ‘special projects’; with his work featuring in the Hong Kong Shang Hai Bank in Shang Hai and at Canary Wharf.
According to his workmate and friend, Ron, dad was the go to man if you needed anything made from sheet metal. He worked on an old forming machine - his skill was legend. In those days you could fix sills onto your rusting car and according to Ron, dad formed hundreds of them by touch and eye. No push-button computerised equipment for him. We were also the beneficiaries of dad’s talents, being the only children with handmade stainless steel fully adjustable roller skates.
And of course there were the famous Otis Christmas parties for us children, with presents and references to someone called Tom, never realizing that was our dad.
Retired to Prestatyn
After retirement dad moved to Prestatyn enjoying a happy and relaxed twenty years playing golf and going on long walks with beloved border collie Gemma. He made many friends there meeting up every morning with his dog-walking pals at a place which became known as Cosy Corner. As time moved on and dad’s health became more challenging he decided to move back to Huyton and in April 2013 moved in to an apartment at Prior Court. He really was blessed to have moved there where he was supported by committed and caring staff, including his housekeeper Cheryl who kept him on the straight and narrow as well as entertaining him with stories of her own family.
During the Priory Court years Dad also enjoyed regular visits from cousins Carol and Evelyn. These visits were important and special to him, sharing stories and looking over the old family photographs.
As a family we are so grateful to everyone at Priory Court, we were secure in the knowledge that dad was safe and cared for. It meant a great deal to dad to be able to die happy in his own home and he was able to do just that, peacefully, asleep, in his own home, just as he wanted.
Thanks
We would also like to thank some other people who made a big contribution to dad’s heath and well-being in the last few years:
To the haematology team at Broadgreen Hospital To Christine Roberts and the Liverpool Community IV Team who for the past year visited him weekly at home and provided much more than just medical care, To Community Matron, Wendy Noonan and the District Nurse team To Prestige Nursing whose efforts allowed dad to be nursed at home
All of them shiny beacons of excellence in medical care, and more than that, in caring for him as a whole person with dignity and respect.
And to his neighbours at Priory Court, who always had time for him, asked after him and especially to Inge, Eunice, Wilf, Dave and Olive.
Golf
It would be wrong to finish this celebration of Alan’s life without mention of his other passion – golf. Dad was a brilliant golfer, at his peak playing off scratch with no shortage of partners at Bowring Park, Huyton and Prescot and Prestatyn golf clubs.
As children we remember him spending weekends and summer evenings at golf, if the weather was fine, and it was still light, there were nine holes to be squeezed in.
For us, his success was measured by the very many trophies and prizes he won. There was a time where he seemed to come home with something every week. It was a bit like the Generation Game, one week a clock, the next a Teasmade and then something exotic called a coffee percolator. Never a Christmas went by when we didn’t have a hamper dad had won at some competition or other.
One evening his golf clubs were stolen from his car at Huyton and Prescot Golf Club, he could buy new clubs but he could never replace the trusted and treasured stainless steel putter he had made for himself. By then he had retired from Otis and it could never be replaced.
As in all aspects of his life, so he was at golf, describing himself as an unorthodox player, more of a Lee Trevino than an Arnold Palmer. In the last few years he took to using an upside down golf iron as a walking stick, defeating many a physiotherapist who tried to tell him otherwise.
A character, who always had time for a chat, always with a story to tell but much more interested in questioning, listening and learning than in talking. Alan will be much missed by all of us and remembered as a kind, generous and caring family man.