My father’s words of wisdom

IN the year that the Cork writer Patrick Galvin died, my own Patrick Galvin was also in his final days. My father wasn’t distinguished or a man of letters: he had worked in the factories of Coventry from his early 30s, as a machinist, been widowed young and raised two daughters.

If it hadn’t been for his quiet attention, I would not have judged the prestigious Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award this year, because I might never have learned to read.

I was ‘slow’ at school, because my eyesight was weakened by measles, but he gently steered me forward by example: reading to me, writing words on scraps of paper that I could secretly pull out of my pocket and copy, at school, to disguise my lack of confidence in writing; taking me to the library, making up thrilling bed-time stories: “The wind is howling and Shep is out on the moors …” Had he not shared stories with me, I would have retreated within myself and been overlooked in the classroom.