How do I do justice to our Father's 95 years, for a life lived through such momentous times?  Of course I can't.
 
Penry Marshall Greenaway, Marshall being his mother, Gladys' maiden name and Penry? Who knows where she got that idea from, I’m not aware of any close Welsh connections. But then, she named his younger brother Vernaad  with two A’s. Pen, to his family and friends, and variously Ken, Henry, and Perry to others, was born in China in 1925, a place called Weihai in the north-east of the country.  His Father, William, was in the Navy and was stationed there.  It was a particular joy to Dad that he reconnected with China in recent years when his grandson Christopher married Congshan, know to us all as Alicia.
 
I have to tell you that several people in our family are known by other names. Gladys was called Kate,  Vernaad  was always  known by his middle name Hugh for obvious reasons and Dad's younger sister Kathryn was born Mavis. This information might be useful for what follows.
 
The family returned to England in 1927 and settled in Kent next door to  his maternal grandparents.  It was very rural in those days and in later years Dad seemed to look back with a deep longing to that place and time. It was, he told us, the happiest part of his childhood.  He really wanted us to see it so we all went down in 2008.  The little house in Hempstead his Father had built  still exists and he talked about climbing trees in the woods next to the house. He showed us the route he took from there to school (which is still there). He remembered the names of his favourite teachers and recalled the extended family and friends who lived nearby.
 
In 1932, they were off again, this time to Malta, where they lived twice, returning to Kent in between.  From the stories he recalled it sounds rather idyllic but he once said that he was not particularly happy there.  I think he found the disruption of moving regularly difficult, particularly settling into different schools. Perhaps that's why we never moved during our childhoods. They came back to England for the final time in June 1939. A few weeks before the outbreak of war, the family moved into 91 Conway Road, and he never moved again.
 
Dad experienced the war both as a child and a soldier. He recalled watching dog-fights overhead from the back garden. If he was out delivering papers he sometimes had to take cover in porches when shell casings rained down.  The house was nearly lost to an incendiary bomb which came through the ceiling of one of the bedrooms. Several fell on the street and the tennis courts. His father was home at the time and he shouted to Penry to call for a stirrup pump.  Dad  called to the fire warden who went off to get it but IT never showed up. Dad recalled this incident with some pleasure, I suspect it wasn't so amusing at the time. Fortunately the bomb didn't ignite properly so the damage was slight, but you can still see where the ceiling was repaired.
 
At 18 Dad joined the Royal Engineers and not long after D-Day boarded a ship bound for Normandy. He was trained as a dispatch rider; meaning he was given a motorbike, a field and an afternoon in which to learn to ride it.  He would often have to go ahead of his company when it was on the move and was often at risk of straying into enemy lines. One winter night with almost no illumination he ran into a tank transporter and his hand was crushed between his bike and the tyre of the truck. One tale he enjoyed telling though;  he was riding alongside another motorbike in convoy. The two were so exhausted they both fell asleep, the convoy stopped and they ran into the back of the truck in front, their front wheels jammed under the lorry leaving the riders upright, dazed but otherwise unhurt. Their commanding officer was just behind them; he jumped out of his vehicle and dealt with the situation by breaking-out the rum. Tragedy however was always close; Dad was late back from an assignment so a friend did a run that Dad was supposed to have done on his return. He never came back. At one point Dad was the only dispatch rider left in the company, the others were either dead or injured.
 
I’ll mention one other incident (again amusing only in hindsight). He had stopped for a break while on the road and was sitting on his bike smoking a cigarette , Sten gun by his side. Two German soldiers came up behind him, he could never have got to his gun in time.  Thank God, they wanted to surrender. I would have liked to thank them for sparing his life - and ours!  Despite his experiences I never heard him say one hateful word about Germany and, indeed, he got into trouble while stationed in Berlin. Soldiers were strictly forbidden from talking to civilians in the early days after the War, and his sergeant caught him trying to help a young Berliner with a malfunctioning bicycle. He was lucky not to be put on a charge.
 
That war experience took its toll. Dad told us how, on his return from the war he suffered with claustrophobia. He recounted being in a cinema, starting to panic and having to get out. It could be linked to his voyage to France. He was in the hold of the transport ship for a long time before they set off and he was frighted of the ship being attacked and sinking.  His  claustrophobia was something that seemed to bother him in his last weeks too, he wanted the door of the bedroom kept open.
 
After leaving the army Dad went to night school and qualified as a structural engineer, working almost all his career for the Council, He enjoyed his work but his great passion was carpentry and he very much wanted  to make his living that way but he was persuaded (by his Father so he told me) to do something more 'secure', to his lasting regret.
 
William  died in 1950 leaving Kate and the four children, Barbara, Penry, Kathryn and Hugh. Kate - Granny - was a novelist and wrote for various magazines. It was through the literary world that she met a young Canadian woman Gladys Houck  who was visiting England with her younger sister Lorna. Sometime in 1954, I believe, Kate invited Gladys to a party at Conway Rd. Lorna came too and there she and Penry first met.  They married in September 1955,  a marriage that lasted until her death in 2010.  Looking at photos of them at that time, their evident happiness is reflected in the letters we still possess.  I know that Dad was not always the easiest of men to live with but they loved each other till the end. Mum's death was a terrible blow for him.
 
Michael was born in 1957 and he had Mum & Dad all to himself until I came along in 1964 and Martin, 18 months later. There are bumps in the road for all families and ours was no exception but the three of us can look back on a stable and loving childhood. Each of us have our own particular memories of course, but the key thing is this - Dad was there for us. I was the first in my immediate family to go to University and Dad was very proud.  I unwisely chose to study astrophysics and when I failed two of my first year exams I felt like giving up. I remember walking to the phone box to call home (yes, we did that in those days). Dad answered, he didn't tell me to pull my socks up or that he was disappointed, he simply said that whatever I decided he would fully support me.
 
Our side of the family has a very poor record for producing girls but Dad gained two daughters by marriage, Sherri & Carolyn,  whom he loved deeply and who was loved deeply in return.  They were both devoted to him and feel his loss as keenly as we do.
 
And Dad was a devoted Grandfather too, to our twin Sons, Christopher & David. Always there when we needed a helping hand, collecting them from the childminder at the last minute, taking them out to the park and generally allowing the boys to run rings around him. They were a handful but he loved every moment,  often struggling to recount an episode because he was laughing so much.  Dad knew how to laugh! And in his last years he took great joy in welcoming the boys’ partners Alicia and Sabrina into our family.
 
I can't finish without mentioning Dad's last great Hurrah!  As a Normandy Veteran he joined old comrades aboard the passenger ship Boudicca for  5 days of D-Day 75 commemorations in 2019. Michael & Sherri made it possible and Michael went with him, to keep him out of trouble. It was wonderful to see him in the limelight getting some recognition for his sacrifice and service.  We were able to watch him on the BBC laying a wreath at the Commonwealth War cemetery in Bayeux.  To say we were proud doesn't quite cover it.
 
As many of you will know, the last six months were very difficult for Dad. He went into hospital in early February and suffered severe internal bleeding. Incredibly the doctors saved his life but thereafter he was in and out of hospital with infections and became increasingly frail. However, there was a brief period in mid-June when he seemed much like his old self and on Father's Day the whole Family were around him to celebrate. He had a great time, as did we all. By the following Wednesday he was back in hospital and that was the beginning of the end.
 
Dad spent his last few weeks in the house he first came to as a 14 year old boy.  This was made possible thanks to the wonderful support of the community palliative care team, the North London Hospice and carers from Natgap,  They were all so kind and gentle towards him. We cannot adequately express our gratitude.
 
In those final days, when Dad was lucid, he would sometimes talk about the trees outside his window, perhaps he was thinking of Kent.
 
One of the last of the Greatest generation. We miss him.