My dad, John Archibald Frew, of Musselburgh, Scotland died thirty years ago this New Year’s Day, just after midnight on January 1st, 1984, shortly after I’d celebrated the bells with him.
Consequently, the festive time of year and particularly when midnight strikes to welcome a new year, is never easy – even after all these years. In those early years afterwards it somewhat haunted me and I would make the journey off to Edinburgh each year and stand outside at the Tron with 30,000 other souls in order not to feel stifled and suffocated at the thought of losing him.
There is never a day that passes when I don’t think of him and all he imparted to his son – the lessons he taught me and wisdom he shared. I can still hear the soft tones of his voice any time I care to listen, in my mind. That last night we were together which was at Hogmanay I kissed him, during the celebrations, the first time since being a little boy. It was uncharacteristic of us and was to be a goodbye kiss. It was almost as though we had known…
John or ‘Jock’ as he was known by friends was the product of a very hard background. Poverty meant that he routinely went without shoes on his feet as a bairn. As infants in Musselburgh he and his brother slept in makeshift beds made from the drawers of an old chest. Subsequently, the wee boys’ mammy, Elizabeth, died when John was just four years old. Those early life experiences toughened him as hard as teak for the trials he would go through in his life. Let it not be ignored though that he could show rare wisdom and at times be a very funny man indeed. People told me he was a most popular and loved man in the town we lived. Wherever he walked, he would speak to all and greet them cheerily as an old friend.
As a youngster he had a roaming spirit and attempted to run away from home on many occasions. Later on, he was to painstakingly save the money on returned ‘jeely jars’ and acquire himself a ramshackle bicycle with which he cycled all the way from Lanarkshire in Scotland to Doncaster in England, a cool 230 miles, before falling off the bike during the monumental journey and sleeping, exhausted, in a deep ditch for the night. A quizzical passing policeman helped him out of there in the morning when he woke.
He actually attended for trials with professional football club, Doncaster Rovers during his brief stay there, being a twinkle-footed footballer but decided against it as ‘there was no money in it’.
John strove for a living in the pits of Scotland as a young boy of just fourteen, working all day long on his hands and knees in eighteen inches of water. He then worked on the Scapa Flow naval base on Orkney with his beloved brother, Alex ‘Sandy’, before travelling the world several times over as a proud Merchant Seaman. The German U-Boats tried their best on those horrific Atlantic runs but couldn’t kill him off in the icy waters of the North Atlantic when he was left clinging on, waiting to be rescued from certain death.
For the year coming, he would have been proud, I know, to think that the country he loved so, his dear, beloved Scotland, could have the opportunity to stand alone and look after itself.
My dad was my rock and his memory remains that to this day. I owe him much.
Fond memories. God bless you, Paw.
John Archibald Frew 1921-1984 ‘Life’s work well done’.
kly one called ‘Ooh to be a Hibby’ and focuses questions to a fan of the club regarding why they support the team, their first Hibs game and their greatest Hibs hero. Finally it allows the contributor to do something perhaps all football follower the world over like to do – play manager and in this case pick an all-time team. 
THE TEARS OF A CLOWN 