R.I.P. - 'Allen Peter Bazeley' - April 15th 1989

Who the bleep is Allen Peter Bazeley I hear you ask... Well let me tell you

He was my Dad and the person I miss the most. April 15th 1989 is a date etched in history due to the horrific scenes that happened at Hillsborough that Saturday afternoon. For me it is the worst date ever... It was the day my Dad died.

The last photo of Dad, taken about 2 weeks before he died with his niece Zoe

I was born in 1972 on the sunny island of Cyprus, Dad was in the British Army and was stationed there at the time. Shortly after I was born he found out that he had 'Hodgkins Disease' a form of cancer that fights the immune system, meaning that just getting the common cold could be really serious for him. I remember being told that his Mum looked it up in her medical books and it stated that the only cure was arsenic !!

For the first 17 years of my life the cancer came and went a total of 4 times. Each time it took more of a toll on his body and made him weaker. I remember about 3 or 4 years before he was in hospital and the surgeon told my Mum that he wasn't expected to last the night. He did, but as part of the operation he had 6 feet of gangarous gut removed. He was a fighter that's for sure. It sounds awful but on the morning of April 15th I was annoyed with him. He'd fallen ill over night and needed to be taken into the hospital. The reason I was annoyed was because it was FA Cup Semi Final day and I was a Liverpool supporter and I knew that I was gonna miss the game. He'd been ill so many times that I was beginning to feel he was invincible and therefore I didn't see the point in going. I'm glad I did obviously. He was transferred to Hammersmith Hospital where he passed away at 21.30. It wasn't the cancer, his body had finally given in.

But enough of the morbidness, I would like to share a couple of songs that he loved combined with some memories of him. I hope you like them as much as he did.

Phil Collins - 'In The Air Tonight' (1981)

My Mum remembers a funny little story about this song... These are her words.

'In 1981 while living Kerkrade in Holland we went to the out of town hypermarket and one of the many things we bought was Face Value, the Phil Collins LP. After unpacking the shopping when we got home. We realised that we had left the LP in the shopping trolley!! Needless to say we were angry, but we saw the funny side of it.  We did buy it again, not sure from where, possibly the NAAFI, and I think it is upstairs in the attic right now.'

Laughing about the missing album ??

My favourite musical memory of my Dad was when I bought the tape of the Pet Shop Boys album 'Disco' it only had 6 songs on it , 3 on each side of tape. Dad borrowed it from me one day and it remianed in his car for well over a year. It was the only thing he listened to for that entire time, thankfully the car stereo in his Yugo Zastava was advanced enough to play it and turn the tape over automatically. He never got sick of it, and to be honest even now I still love the album. This was his favourite track on the tape.

Pet Shop Boys - 'In The Night' (1986)

Finally I'll leave you with one of his favourite artists of the 1960's from a few years before he met my Mum

George Jones & Gene Pitney - 'Don't Rob Another Man's Castle' (1965)

25 years on... RIP Dad