If you’ll forgive my self-indulgence, dear reader, I’d like to tell you a little story…
Once upon a time, in a not so very far away land, there lived a boy. The boy lived with his mother and his father and his baby sister in a small and humble dwelling. The boy and his family were poor. His father worked on the land, and - before he was school age - the boy learnt to work the land too.
The boy had no toys, but he wasn't sad. He loved his simple pleasures: sunshine, his friends, and the occasional fig which fell from a neighbour's tree.
The family struggled from day to day to make enough to put bread on the table. They would buy a 40lb sack of grain, and the boy would carry it the two miles down to the miller, who ground the grain. In the hot sun, the boy then carried the flour two miles back up the hill. The sack no lighter, and the journey now uphill, but at least it was closer to being bread.
This particular time though, there was no salt to make the bread. The bread always had to last for forty days, so forty days with saltless bread beckoned for the boy and his family. But the boy was both resourceful and tenacious. And he snuck into a nearby barn, where he knew the wild chickens roosted, and he corraled some eggs.
With the eggs, he went to the village grocer, who knew him well, and asked him if he would trade eggs for salt. The grocer smiled a knowing smile, and duly swapped.
Two days later, the bread made, the first warm bites savoured down to their last crumbs, and the remainder stowed for the following six weeks, the boy was playing near the grocer in the square. The grocer called him over. "Where did you get those eggs?!", he barked. "Why?", replied the boy sheepishly. "One of them had a chick in it!", the grocer boomed, his face then cracking into a smile. "Oh, sorry, I'll get you another", said the boy through his embarrassment.
Another time, the boy bought a ticket in a local Christmas raffle for the smallest unit of currency available and, as luck would have it, on this occasion he was fortunate. His prize was a small doll, about two inches high. Of course, he gave it to his sister, as he gave most everything he earned or won to his family. Except for the occasional priceless fig, which he snaffled and savoured.
A couple of years later, when he was about twelve, he was talking with a friend about how his family needed a calf to rear, so that they could mate from their bullock. Overhearing the conversation, the boy's friend's father looked over and, seeing the earnestness of his son's friend, offered one of his own calves. The boy was overwhelmed. "But how can I pay you?", he asked. "Don't worry", said the man, "I know you, you’ll pay me when you can."
The boy led the calf home to his father and the rest of his family, by now with the addition of another boy, his baby brother. They were incredulous with disbelief. Over the next couple of years, the family reared the calf to near adulthood. She was almost ready to breed from.
But at that time the family owed some money, and the creditor would wait no longer for repayment. The boy went and asked his godfather for help to pay the debt, but his godfather turned his back, even though he was comfortably well off. The creditor came and took the cow, and slaughtered it for meat, despite the pleas of the boy and his family.
A few months later, the boy had gathered the money to pay his friend's father back for the calf that he had so generously offered those years before. When he arrived at the house, his friend's father thanked him for the money and asked how the cow was doing, and if they'd bred from her yet.
Fighting back his tears, the boy explained that the cow had been lost as payment of a debt, and that they had no way of breeding from their - by now – fully grown bull.
The friend's father was taken aback and looked first at the boy, then at his own small herd. He had half a dozen, maybe seven, cows and offered the boy his pick. The boy was once more stunned by the generosity of his friend’s father, but explained that he couldn't pay for the cow as he had spent all his money on the previous one. The friend's father was a truly kind man, and not selfish. He said he knew the boy would pay for the first one – as he just had, and he knew he'd pay for this one too. When he could.
Beside himself with gratitude, the boy said he wouldn't know which cow to choose. The man suggested a gaunt looking one, who he said took little feeding, but offered plentiful milk. The man also offered to buy the milk from the cow, if the family wanted, but that this was their choice.
*********
When he was barely old enough, and with no education, that same brave and tenacious boy, now a young man, travelled to a land many times farther away then than it is now, to seek a new life and to support his family from afar.
With not even so much of the local dialect as 'hello', he learned a few formalities and took a job working on tables and washing pots. Soon after, his energy and people skills were spotted and rewarded. He was offered, and accepted, a job in a very upmarket establishment, where he worked with and learned from the best in his trade. He earned good money and he sent almost all of it home.
Within six months, he had 300 in the bank, and withdrew all but 1 to take home. When he travelled back, he visited his friend, and repaid his father.
While the young man had been away, the cow had been introduced to the bull, and they got along very well. So well, in fact, that there were two calves on the land as well as the adult animals.
The young man also learnt that his godfather had unfortunately drowned while swimming in the bay. Some said that he had been drowned. The young man didn’t forget how he had turned his back before and lost no sleep now.
The young man enjoyed his visits home, and was warmly welcomed by his family: his doting mother, his proud father, his younger sister who worshipped him, and his younger brother (whom the young man considered his first son in many ways).
But his life was elsewhere. His life was now in England, where in the future he was to have a family, and own businesses and property. He would do all of this with no education and with no money to start. Without even the rudiments of the language to help him be understood.
He would always be caring and generous, and he would always be selfless. He never charged people who couldn’t afford it the full price for anything. He would feed hungry people when others turned their back. Because he'd known how that felt.
For this reason, he would not be a great businessman, but he would be a great man.
This is just a tiny snapshot of the true story that makes this man, now in his late sixties, a hero to me.
An everyday hero: he’s my dad. :)
Matt
