Judith writes about her father George Edward Hubbard....
I was the eldest child. People, who knew both father and I, often said that I definitely
took after him both in personality and in ways.
When doing a personality test for career prospects a few years ago, I came out
strongly as an Architect. This pleased me greatly, except I was in my late 50’s
and it was too late to take up that career. However, give me Lego and I immediately
build!
Father and I were close. We both had a rebellious streak and never took normal
routes through life. We would both get up to pranks behind mother’s back. I
remember a notable holiday at Heacham, in Norfolk around 1960. The game Bingo
had just recently become popular and there was a Bingo centre near where we were staying.
He and I went off several evenings on the pretext of a walk together but instead
had a fun time doing Bingo! It was such an antithesis to our usual life, that it
was totally therapeutic. We never said a word about ‘Bingo’ to anyone.
Father had a very sweet tooth; chocolates and sweets were a passion, which probably
didn’t help the diabetes he developed in later life. I have to constantly keep
in check, my own consumption. A box of chocolates could sit unopened on my
shelves for a very long time, but once opened has to be consumed totally,
straight away.
His approach to religion was highly personal and
original; which meant he found the tedium of parish life crippling. This doesn’t mean
father
wasn’t a good and faithful priest – because he was. Just that his approach was
different from the mainstream. His mother always wanted him to be ordained (like
his brother Jack) and he eventually bowed to this. His vision of religion
however was wider than most people’s. He could embrace and accept the other
faiths he found in India with an openness that didn’t put him on the ‘convert
the wretched heathen’ wagon. Instead he enjoyed dialogue and valued friendship
in an age that was pre-multicultural/multifaith as we understand it. The whole
of life has meaning and cannot be contain in a single creedal straightjacket.
Father had a love of ancient buildings which with his
architectural skills, made him very acceptable to bishops! He was in the
forefront of the
project at
Abingdon, did much by way of
advising to other clergy/parishes and oversaw church restoration at
Milton Malsor. There is
something about an ancient site or ruin of any kind that kindles the imagination
of times past and puts the present into perspective.
Both my brothers had very different and not very easy relationships with father;
being younger than me, they rarely saw the more fun loving side of him. Those few
years made all the difference. Robert with his problems was a severe
disappointment to father. By the time Nicolas came along, father had run out of
steam for family pursuits. Nicolas in particular always felt he had a
grandfather figure rather than a father figure to look to. Other fathers played
cricket or kicked a football around – my brothers had little or none of this.
Father’s later years were not happy ones. His marriage with my mother had been
fraught with difficulties since the mid-nineteen-fifties. There was a twenty
year difference between mother and father which never made things easy. These
days they would have divorced, but being products of their upbringing,
generation and being ‘clergy family,’ divorce was not an acceptable option. All
credit to all of us, that we stayed as sane as we did.
He loved cats and teased them unmercifully but they always came back purring for
more! Nick my brother has the same gift – cats adore him, yet he can treat them
in a very rough way.