Daddy

Arthur Reginald Ruddock (1947-2025)

There was a moment, always just before the slam of the car door, when I’d catch the sound of your engine pulling into the driveway. Mom would unlock the kitchen door, and I’d run to meet you—always faster than my sisters—because I wanted the first hug, the newspaper, the moment. Cartoons first, then sport, then the crossword. My Latin teacher had introduced us to cryptics, and I was determined to master them. You always knew the answers when I didn’t. You loved being asked. And you never failed me.

We’d eat together next—sometimes at the kitchen table, sometimes in front of MacGyver or The A-Team. You’d meticulously arrange your food so that your last bite, you told us, always had a bit of everything. You ate your corn in neat rows. You lined up your chips like fence posts. Life was chaotic enough—you organised what you could.

From you I learned to love cricket—a gentleman’s game, you said. And you were the consummate gentleman. I treasured every hour spent with you at The Wanderers, basking in the triumphs and minor heartbreaks of Transvaal cricket’s golden era. Somehow you always managed to get me the autographs, the behind-the-scenes glimpses. And when I dared to defect and support Free State, you didn’t scold me—you drove five hours to Bloemfontein so I could watch Hansie Cronje and Micky Arthur play. When Crystal Palace came to South Africa at the dawn of democracy, you pulled every string to get me there. You gave me more than opportunities. You gave me joy.

My deepest love, though, is the African bushveld—a love you gave me. You knew every bird, every call. Before our annual pilgrimages to Kruger I would memorise the bird book, desperate to be like you. I loved those long drives, your terrible dad-jokes, the sound of test-match cricket on the radio mingling with your stories of safaris past. I can still taste the buffalo-meat pies and gravy. Still feel you beside me as we marvel in silence at the vastness of the Milky Way.

The last time we were there together, the Alzheimer’s had begun its slow theft. One evening we went out on a drive, just the two of us. A bull elephant emerged from the mist, immense and gentle, and we stopped to watch. They were always your favourite—like you, gentle giants. You turned to me and said thank you. Told me how proud you were. How much you treasured that time. You always praised with honesty and warmth. But I remember how moved I felt, how strangely sad that moment was. It was like you knew that we would not be there together again. It felt like a goodbye.

I know that my memories of you will be like that elephant, daddy, emerging from the mist of my life’s road. Quietly. Unexpectedly. I’ll be walking, or reading, or listening to Roger Whittaker, and suddenly you will be there. And I will stop, hold my breath, awed by your implacable presence, your gentle grandeur. And like the elephant, you will fade just as gently into the thicket and in the hush that follows in the wake of that passing, my heart will be full.

There’s a hole in the world, Daddy. An elephant-shaped space where you should be. I am fifty now—wiser, more grateful now than the boy you took to the cricket, shaped by your constancy and care into someone I know you were proud of. You taught me how to be strong, principled, kind. Still, as I stare at the now-empty road ahead, I feel like a twelve-year-old boy again—sitting in the lounge, in the soft light of evening, straining my ears for the sound of your car pulling in.