Dear Richard Madeley: ‘I've already honoured my father's memory – I don't want another trip down memory lane'
Dear Richard,
My father died in the Allied landings at Anzio when I was a baby. Last year was the 40th anniversary of the battle, and we went to see his grave in the small Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery above the town. (We also visited the rather more lavish US military cemetery at neighbouring Nettuno.)
I'm glad I went before it was too late (I am 82). However, I don't remember my father, and while I did not have the profoundly moving experience one might have hoped for, I responded with a show of emotion that was not entirely feigned. Now, though, my wife and two daughters have proposed another trip to Italy this autumn, and then next year to north Africa, retracing Dad's wartime footsteps.
I love Italy but while I am blessed with good health I find travel tiring these days. I don't really want to do this, but I have somehow given my family the impression that I am more invested in my father's army career than I am. Should I politely demur, or go along with this plan?
– Mark, Surrey
Dear Mark,
Your emotions are being hijacked here. Not with any malign intent or deliberate, wilful insensitivity. But with a kind of cheerful insouciance. Your family are keen to retrace your father's footsteps through the war because they're genuinely curious. And because of your own partly feigned enthusiasm for visiting the Anzio beachhead where he fought and died, they assume you feel the same.
Well, you don't. And there's absolutely no shame in that. You've honoured the memory of your dad by going all the way to Anzio – a horrific if ultimately victorious episode in our wartime history – you don't have anything to prove to anyone (not that you did in the first place).
My advice is to be absolutely straight with your relatives. Tell them that your trip to Italy fulfilled all your needs and desires to pay tribute to your dad. Wish them well if they still want to cover his old tracks. Ask them to send photos from their iPhones. But firmly explain that you'll be staying home in the garden to raise a glass to him as and when those pictures arrive. Do what's right for you, Mark. You're 82, for heaven's sake!
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