My dad left school at 13, most people did in those days.
He started work on a building site.
Houses in east London didn’t have interior plumbing.
So at 6am, in the winter, he’d get up, go into the back yard and break the ice off the tap.
Then he’d take his shirt off and have a wash.
In the evenings, after work, when everyone else went to the pub, he didn’t go with them.
He went home and taught himself to read and write properly, so that he could get a better job.
And he passed the exam to join the police.
That was pretty much the pattern of Dad’s life.
Whatever you didn’t like, whatever made you uncomfortable, don’t run away from it.
Face it head on and out-think it.
When he was a young copper, he worked in south London.
He was put on night shift.
The streets still had gas lights then, so you had eight hours out in the pitch black, totally alone.
Your mind would play tricks on you.
Dad decided the best way to beat it was to face it.
So about 2am he headed towards the middle of Tooting Beck.
Tooting Beck was a very large area of wild land.
There was nothing there except some woods, with a lunatic asylum, and a graveyard, in the middle.
That’s where he went.
Obviously everything was pitch black, no street lights, no light at all.
The only sound was the snapping of twigs under your boots.
And the piercing screams from the asylum.
Dad would head towards the graveyard.
Then he’d feel around for one of the crooked, overgrown graves.
Then he’d sit on it, unwrap his sandwich and make himself slowly eat it.
Training himself not to be afraid of the dark.
Not to believe whatever his mind made up.
He said the worst time was when he was walking through the woods and he felt something brush against his face.
He reached out to see what it was.
It was a foot, which as he carefully felt upwards was attached to a slowly swinging leg.
In the pitch black, Dad had to get the body down.
Then slowly feel it all over, in the dark, to check it wasn’t breathing.
Meanwhile, the only sounds are the screams from the lunatic asylum.
And what you hope are animals walking around the graves.
Dad later found out one of the lunatics had escaped from the asylum and hanged himself.
It wasn’t pleasant, but that was how he out-thought his fear of the dark.
He put himself in a place that was worse than his imagination, and he beat it.
He beat his own imagination.
Which is where reality starts.
Dad never knew anything about Buddha.
But I think he would have understood what Buddha said, two thousand years earlier:
“Nothing can harm a man so much as his own thoughts untamed”.
I can imagine how your dad must’ve felt in the graveyard. Many years back, my best friend died. Before that, he had been fighting for his life in the hospital, with his family members beside him. so during the wake, his very tired family members decided to go home. So they asked who would mind staying back in the funeral parlour.
Up went my hand, thinking my other friends would also want to stay. But they all weaseled out.
Even though I don’t believe in ghosts, it was spooky, walking along dark lanes, lined with coffins – the whole area was full of funeral parlours. What was extremely unsettling was suddenly walking past cooler patches (tree-shaded paths.
Your dad’s a brave man, Dave. I did it once and not by choice.
Wow!
Awesome. I’ve read this three times today already. So inspiring. It’s so exactly how I feel… yet as an art director it makes me feel guilty… Thinking up silly ideas all day long is not exactly a picnic in a graveyard… It’s only my fears that make it so. But then again… It’s those fears that drive me forward. Thanks again Dave for such an inspiring story. You dad is brave… and highly creative.
This is so interesting Dave, takes real guts to do what your dad did.
Natalie,
I think Dad’s (and Buddha’s) point was that whatever scares you is in your head.
We think our fears exist in the world outside our head, but they don’t.
All that exists outside our head is stuff, not good or bad.
The trick is to use our fear (as you do) but know it isn’t real
I am so impressed by your dad. And I think inspired. It never hurts to be reminded that we need to confront our fears and I just thought of some a lot less scary than dead bodies hanging in the night so I feel like I have no excuse for not dealing with them.
Thanks for sharing this.
Thanks Mark, that was exactly the point
When I first moved to London I was working all hours.
I nearly always ended up down the tube station at midnight.
That enabled me to get a better grip on reality.
Confronting the images, the song of the same name had placed in my head.
At the time the worst tube station for crime had just been named Tooting Broadway.
The Evening Standard had a field day with it.
Fortuitously that was my home stop.
I say fortuitously because it further rammed home my suspicions that reality and storytelling were two different things.
As my dad was want to say, “Don’t always believe what you hear because it just might not be true.”
Incidentally, just for the record, I believe Tooting Bec is still like that.
Tooting Bec might be like that John, but I bet young coppers don’t nip over to the graveyard for a sandwich at midnight.
Not unless it’s broad daylight.
I wouldn’t.
I think they probably check out the zombies in the 24HR McD’s these days, Dave.
This story left me awed and tremendously impressed. I often hear/read bumper-sticker phrases to ‘face your fear’; ‘lead the life you love’ but rarely do I hear about the actions and courage it takes. I know I’d be fearful to wash off, outside, in a British winter. I’ll read this again later today. Thanks for sharing.