Rob Hurst

Like many men of his generation, particularly servicemen, Dad spent two years kind of mopping up operations in New Guinea.

And I think a lot of men like that were quite silent.

They didn't want to ever say what they'd seen.

But they prided themselves on a discretion and humility and privacy.

These things hardly exist today, as we know, but that was that generation.

They were also children of the Depression.

So Dad was very silent, like that generation.

Not a dad you'd hug, but a dad, a father that, you know, just by a look that he'd give you, you knew that you'd fucked up.

And he had a lot of the war still in him, like he'd shape up as a boxer to us boys if we annoyed him, and we knew that he'd flatten us.

No, he suffered in silence because he couldn't come to grips with what he could do.

When mum finally lay dying in his arms, my mother over a year drank three different kinds of poisons.

She wanted out.

And, you know, if the law in this country...

If there was some sense for people who were so, had lived a great life but just didn't want to be around, you know, she wouldn't have had to do that.

But as she lay dying with Dad holding her and the ambulance took other priority calls because that generation never wanted to bother anyone, by the way.

I just think that broke Dad's heart.

He never really recovered.

Dad died last year.

Do you think he felt that he'd failed your mum somehow?

Perhaps, yeah.