When I was a child, our parents couldn’t afford much. But we
did have Scalextric. We only had a
modest track, but there was pure boyhood delight in racing with our Lotus or
our green Jaguar. Uncle Frank and my cousins might have filled an unused double
garage with a train set, but those trains couldn’t speed like racing cars.
Other families at church had bigger sets than us, and every
year we put them all together. We did so at the annual church bazaar. It was
our church’s way of keeping the kids happy while Mum and Dad spent money. We filled
a whole room with an amazing set-up. Who needs someone dressing up as Father
Christmas when you have Scalextric?
It lasted until my mid-teens. Dad and I got interested in
Proper Hi-Fi. We wanted to replace our music centre with something decent. We
sold the Scalextric to raise some money. I remember the night the advert
appeared in the free paper. Two families sped to get to our house first and buy
it. I haven’t played with Scalextric since.
But three Christmases ago, I told Debbie it would be great
to have a set for when our children (then 21 months and four months) were
older. She thought I was dropping a hint, and so my Christmas present in 2004
was a Micro
Scalextric kit. But I wasn’t hint dropping. We stored it until the children
were old enough.
Two days ago, I got it in from the garage. Last night,
before bedtime, I assembled it. As if to enhance the retro/nostalgia mood,
Debbie had tuned into UKTV
Gold, who were showing highlights of Morecambe
and Wise. I was having my own retro moment, though. It was not so much that
I was a five-year-old again. I was my father. I was doing something he had done
for me.
In the nearly five years since Rebekah had to be prised out of
Debbie’s womb by emergency Caesarean (she was enjoying the Cadbury’s Crème Eggs
too much), I have done many things for her and Mark that my father did for me. Buying
groceries, paying utility bills, washing and bathing, changing Technicolor nappies,
reading. You name it, I’ve done it. I’ve eschewed superintendent ministry,
partly because I don’t want to be an absentee Dad, having become a father later
than most.
But last night I was
my father. Last night, I lived within my skin the fatherly love he showed for
me as a child. I felt the satisfaction of putting the track together. And since
I am the world’s most impractical man, that achievement was a real pleasure. I felt
the frustration as crash barriers on the bends refused to clip on properly. (That’s
more like me.) I felt the anticipation of knowing that two little monkeys would
come downstairs this morning and see the track, the cars and the controllers. I
prepared for them sending the cars too fast, so that they unintentionally flew
off at corners.
I wasn’t disappointed. Rebekah was up before any of us. We didn’t
hear her creep downstairs in her pyjamas. Where did she learn creeping, then? But
we did hear her call up to us her delight at seeing the track. The cars did fly
off sometimes, but not as frequently as I had expected. She and Mark successfully
drove the cars around the circuit at a far greater speed than I expected them
to manage. (What will they be like when we finally cave into a gaming console?)
I had to solve problems when the cars refused to work. To my surprise, I was
successful. I guess Dad was, too, when something went wrong all those years
ago.
To walk this small way in my Dad’s shoes is a great
privilege. It’s a spiritual discipline, too, to walk in someone else’s shoes. There
are several analogies. We do so in empathy for the hurting. We use holy
imagination in spiritual exercises such as Ignatian Bible reading. We risk joy
and pain in wanting a small glimpse of the
Father’s ways. Last night, it was enough to feel like (my now 80-year-old) Dad.
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