Pictures : Captain my Captain

O Captain My Captain is the title of a poem by Walt Whitman it was the basis of work concerning images of my father, Edward Ryan, also called Ted

One of the earliest was this collage and crayon, me as a dapper two year old on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral with dad holding Elaine, my eldest sister in the background.

It's not an event I remember but there I am....

I can’t remember standing by the van having my photograph taken although I can remember the van, a cream Standard with “Ted Ryan and Son, 34 Victoria Street, Fish Fruit and Poultry, licensed dealer in game” written on the side.

The van was part of the fish business, my grandfathers business and dad worked for him. Deliveries were made in the van or fish boxes collected from Merthyr railway station.

There was a metal tray in the back as it had to carry fish boxes and the tray stopped the water from the ice in the boxes rotting the floor of the van.

It didn’t stop it smelling of fish though.

During school holidays I would go on deliveries with him or the other drivers that worked for them

I spent time with dad in the shop in Victoria Street on a Thursday afternoon, half day closing,

I assume we, the children, sat in the back to go to church I can only remember years later sitting in the back of a Morris Minor, our next van, to go for days out; I assume we did the same in the Standard.

My father never owned a car until about 1979 when the fish business closed and he moved to a shop on Brecon Road.