My Father, John

8 successful Hobarts and 15 years of thrice weekly dawn sea kayak paddles did not prepare John for the overwhelming horror he felt caused by the ministrations of the nursing staff when he broke his leg. Decades of independence evaporated when the Endone took affect and that titanium plate and screws straightened his femoral spiral fracture. Never one to do things by halves, that surgical rod was - indeed a beauty. Hip to knee. Scaling at sea, an ocean-going yacht’s mast in a boson’s chair did prepare him for the mechanical hoist used to swing him from commode to bed, but the indignity of being hoisted naked but for a hospital gown diminished the experience.

John, my 90 year old father; the carer for my 88-year-old Alzheimer’s mum. Broken leg and a hospital stay. I took iPhone images daily, and once my DSLR, fully convinced he would be out of hospital in a few days. To my great despair, he died 3 weeks after taking his portraits. Tough as a strip of ironbark, an ocean sailor and athlete, but none of this helped.