Today’s story is: Page 7 from “A different tune”, one of the stories in Old Saltie I grew up accepting the differences in our family as normal; I thought that all families had children who mourned missing family members and who followed different religions. Ours just happened to have five Anglicans, three Jews and one Catholic in the mix. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I fully realized that I was the only child of Harry and Rose rather than the seventh child in a large family, and that was from something my Mother said when Dad was organizing his affairs when his business grew too big to manage with him as the sole owner and there was first talk of a possible takeover. Although Mother disagreed (Your father is always so damned Honourable), Dad was scrupulously fair in his distribution of the new shares. Dad retained the shares to cast a deciding vote at Board meetings, but the other Montford’s shares that paid a dividend were divided by thirteen, with equal shares going to Dad, Mother, Uncle George, Aunt Vi, and nine children including George and Vi’s twins. Dad and Mother, Uncle George and Aunt Vi are all dead now but we surviving children are all here, in this big house overlooking the village that Dad bought for Mother when the war ended and that once belonged to the Squire. We, and our families and their families, have gathered here to grieve the passing of Harry Montford and to attend his State funeral. Today I am taking some quiet time away from the family to read the diaries Dad left addressed to me. Dad’s diaries offer me a welcome escape from the worries of today, of the threatened takeover of Dad’s business, and especially of the family arguments this has caused. My generation wants to sell because Montfords just won’t be Montfords without a Harry at the helm. Our children, and especially the grandchildren, like the status that comes from being a Montford even more than they like the money that rolls in regularly to their bank accounts and argue to keep the family business going. This story is an excerpt from the e-book “Old Saltie” written by Sue Bagust and available on Smashwords and Amazon https://smashwords/books/view/369483
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 21:15:15 +0000
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