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A lot of the family holidays were along the NSW south coast. When we were younger the family went to Tathra beach a lot, and I remember coming home sunburnt a heck of a lot. Dad and mum didn't go in the water to swim with us terribly much, and usually
stayed up on the beach on the towels. But they might walk in the ripples with us a little, but not usually swim. Sometimes there were exceptions to this, but
the norm was for them to stay on the sand as we went swimming or off to the rock pools to
collect shells and cuttlefish and things. A holiday home in Terrigal in Gosford
was visited a bit, but as we got older we went to Milton near Ulladulla a couple of times I think. Dad was usually the quieter one, driving the car, and talking with mum,
while we kids were snapped at not to do this and that by mum an awful lot, and played and had our fun. Dad occasionally played cricket with us over the years,
in the back yard at Berridale and Cooma, and here and there, but this diminished, naturally, as
he got older. He was an indoors man a lot of the time, but he loved to tinker around in the garage and do things in there. Dad once taught me the secret of batting was to keep your eye on the ball, which I think he learned from Don Bradman's teaching on
the issue. I think – I might be mistaken – but he also said the Don usually
hit the ball along the ground a lot and was not caught out much because of it. Dad's book collection (which we still own) was mostly scientific technical sort
of books, and
he had a lot of work related Telecom manuals on hand. In many ways Matt took on
dad's stylings in this department, as Matt kept his electronics studies material, and kept his notes and things, and is reminiscent of Cyril in many ways on these things.
Matt liked to collect cables and cords and little electronic knick-knacks of various types, and gadgets and things, and I think a lot of that is Cyril's type of behaviour as well. I have probably inherited Cyril's religious genes, being very religious
like he was, while Greg has probably got more of Dad's studious type of mentality and his academic scholasticism. It is sort of like Cyril's qualities were divided up among his sons. Dad had an old desk, which is still sitting her
in this front room at
29 merriman were I am typing, and a lot of his notes and things are still in files in the desk, untouched by mum for the most part. If he came back from the
dead today he could resume his life to a fair degree, and Matt also. The Camera
dad have, Matthew
seemed to have inherited, but I have it now, in the wooden cupboard in my room which had belonged to Matthew. I moved into Matt's room recently just before Greg got here again recently, and have settled into it. Naturally, we have turfed a whole lot of
Matt's studied paperwork now, because nobody in the family really needs it, and
its mostly just clutter now. There are many things for both dad and matt that we have retained, though, mostly the important and essential memorabilia of their lives. We
still have dad's projector and his films, and Greg got it up and running a couple of years back, but it mostly sits in the closet now, as mum is starting to get on in life, and nobody in the family has much of an interest in those things. Jacinta seems
to have a desire – or something mum said relating to that – to own the projector and films, so they will probably go to her one of these days. I will likely inherit dad and matt's book collection and mum is leaving me her book collection also when
she eventually passes on. I do have a scrapbook of my father's of movie promo newspaper articles which dad cut out and pasted into the book. It is one of the
permanent pieces from dad that I will keep forever. All his photos are still in
the cupboard in
the room connected to this one, and it looks like they will just sit there until mum passes, at which point I intend to get copies of them all from all the negatives the family still retains of them. There is a photo of dad and mum's wedding right beside
me on the wall here in the lounge room and mum has her marriage certificate faithfully on the wall near her bed. Many things have changed since dad's passing (and Matt's also) but many things remain just the same. James, Greg's boy, is getting older, and
he reminds me of Cyril in many ways. Soft like dad, and gentle, and of good manners. Mum says he is not close to her at times and feels at a distance somewhat from him, but he opens up to me all the time when he is around and we get along really well.
James Daly is an awesome kid and I am very proud of Greg and Christie for producing him. I love him heaps. James full name is James Adelino Cyril Daly, and he takes his middle names from both his grandfathers. He is in Perth at the
moment with his mum
Christie and they are living at Christie's parents place in Forrestfield, while
the home is being rented out, as the family tries to resolve its living situation and work situation. Greg's work at Centrelink is on a contract, and if that ends and he
doesn't get alternative work, he will probably go back to Perth, but time will tell either way. As far as I understand it Christie still works at Medicare in Perth, so the family has two incomes at the moment. I am sure they will resolve
their challenges
in life in time. In latter years, when dad's parkinson's disease became quite prevalent in his life, he was on a wheelchair to get him around a lot of the time, and had become quite a frail old man and of soft speech. It was challenging to talk to him
because he was very frail, but things could be said when necessary. We had a lot of carers who helped take care of dad, and they were good for the family and I miss some of them somewhat – without that help it could have been a real challenge taking
care of dad. When Matt died, my sister Brigid started going back to the Catholic Church regularly, and now goes each sunday to the church mum goes to, Holy Family church in Corpus Christ parish. That was dad's church in his Macarthur years, and I
attended there regularly briefly for a few months in my early 20s when I returned to Christian faith, although after that I went off to Pentecostalism. But Brigid goes regulalry now, and seems to have become somewhat faithful in the way and example mum
and dad always set, and mum still does. If it was still my religion I would be going every Sunday myself and, knowing me, all the weekday services as well. Because there are no real believers in my faith in my community here in Canberra I have to do all
my religious observances on my own, but I would definitely be very regular in a
church if I was still a Christian. So, instead, I read the bible a lot and pray
a lot and do things online. It is how I keep my faith and, perhaps many ways, how I walk in
the religious tradition of my parents and those before them. The religion may have changed, but the tradition of fidelity to God and King remains the same. I
think, of all the things Cyril Daly instilled in his children, it was most definitely a strong
religious observance of going to religious assembly and honouring God. Perhaps more than anything else vital to a soul, dad instilled that in us, which gave us so much potential for have a relationship with God and knowing his salvation
that, when it all
comes down to it, without that in your life, what really matters that much anyway? Thank God dad and Mum care a lot about that issue as far as I am concerned, and will always be grateful for what knowledge of God they did in fact impart to the life of
Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly.

One of the big things for us as kids was the yearly trip to Buckenderra on Lake
Eucumbene for the annual Telecom Christmas party. Dad drove us there and the whole family went, fitting into the station wagon, all 7 of us, some of the kids in the boot,
were I usually was, as we drove out to the four mile and took the off-road up towards Adaminaby and up to Lake Eucumbene. We would get things like cans of soft drink for free and I think there were always things like potato crisps and
there was usually a
barbecue with sausage rolls and probably steaks with fried onions. Dad would have obviously caught up with his workmates at such a gathering, and mum was incessantly mingling with all the people she came along in life anyway. We would have a rug or
something, were mum and dad would sleep, and we might play along the shore of Lake Eucumbene, notice the birdshit from the seagulls I think (possibly), but the thrill of the day was when some old chum showed up in a Santa suit and gave
all the kids
presents. It sure made our day. When the day ended it was a long drive home, but there were lots of long drives home in those early years, especially back from Canberra. That is part of my deepest and fondest memories, the drive in the station wagon home
from Canberra at evening after we had done our business in Canberra for the day, and I am sure dad and mum have memories of fondness from those times as well. I remember getting lost in what, I now remember as, the Canberra Centre when we were kids. It
gave me bad memories for years, and I was delighted when dad walked past and out the entrance and me and Greg went and chased after him. I don't think dad had even noticed me and Greg had disappeared. Some of the big memories of our trips to Canberra
were seeing the giant red golf ball at the golf course in Narrabundah (I think)
just near Symonston. We didn't travel through Tuggeranong in those days to come
to Canberra, but up the Monaro and past Fyshwick into Manuka, which is were we usually first
got into Canberra from. Mum and Dad liked to shop in a Catholic bookstore called 'Pellegrinis' in Manuka in those days, and we went occasionally to a catholic outlet just across the road from St Christopher's cathedral in Manuka.
Early childhood is a lot
of memories of us going to this or that Catholic place or church or organisation, especially Vinnies in Cooma were dad did volunteer work and mum as well from time to time. I even did a little volunteering there myself on just a few occasions. That was
dad's religion and that was dad's faith, and it kept his life very busy and was
probably his biggest thing in life, looking back, apart from his work and things. Dad usually watched TV with us, and the family was usually around the TV set in the 80s for
the Friday Night and Saturday Night movies which were a big deal for us as kids. We got a VCR as a family some time in the mid 80s and then movies became a more and more common thing, but they were pretty big news before that for us as a family in the
earlier 80s, and TV was what we had and watched. I think our TV was a rental back than, but we owned later on and, as a lot of people can relate, they tended to proliferate in the household when they became more affordable. Ironically, these days it is
not so much the fuss of paying for the TV, but paying for someone to take the damn old tube one away. In fact, life tends to accumulate a lot of crap in the average Aussie household I think these days and as your family grows in age and
wealth it is more
of a matter of where I am going to put the damned new things I have gotten. We're not exactly hoarders as a family, but we hardly need anything new these days. Almost more of a recycling thing really, with out with the old and in with the new, and
sometimes it doesn't even have to be that old before we let go of it. Just the way of the world at the moment. Dad, in younger years, would have been more used to toasters that you toast one side at a time and then open the lids, turn
the bread around,
and toast the other side. I could imagine that would have been exactly what he had. But later on, like kettles and things, they became more elaborate. Obviously dad, being born in 1922 and dying in 2007 lived through a turbulent time of not only
conflicts, but vast technological change as well. He probably would have seen the advent of TV and Computers and probably got something of a concept of the Internet, even though he was a bit old and out of touch by the time it was starting to really
emerge. Dad was never a PC Computer man at home, dabbling with older technologies like 70s calculators and telephones of his era and things, but he is the kind of man who would have been had they been around in his generation. Quite possibly would have
been an IT man if he was born in later generations. Amongst his old letters and
work envelopes and things he had a lot of letters with 'O.H.M.S' on them, which
I think were related to his time in Post Master's General. He worked in various
places, and of
course working up in the snow a lot of time during the Snowy Mountains Scheme years, though mum tells me now that he didn't actually work on the scheme itself, but did work up there during the time-frame. Ironically the Snowy TV mini series from the 90s
I think it was, was set in Cooma, but it wasn't actually Cooma were they filmed
because all the places were different. Dad enjoyed his TV, and watched a lot of
it in Canberra years in retirement. He lived a quiet enough life I guess for the most part,
and wasn't given to going on a huge number of trips personally, though he went with mum a lot. In latter years Greg and Mum and me and Matt and Dad would travel a lot here and there around the Canberra region on various trips with dad, getting him in and
out of his chair and helping him to get along. Really, despite dad's frailty, they were enjoyable times, and in many ways the best years of my life. A lot of
that was the early 2000s before dad died in 2007, and I hope dad enjoyed those years, despite
his frail condition. One trip was out to the tracking station in Tidbinbilla, and I remember pushing dad along in his wheelchair, and pointing out the big dishes to him which he enjoyed looking at. Dad's sort of stuff, really. They were good times, those
years. Really, quite good times. I was young in my Noahide faith, but happy with it, and I enjoyed my life with my family, and was, even though I might not
have expressed it, very happy to be part of a family with a good father at the head. Since then,
life has become gradually a bit more sedate, and I think that will go on for some more time yet, but I sense change is coming one day, and a more interactive life will start happening for Daniel Daly again. Not yet, but I'll get there. Naturally, dad had
incontinence problems in later years, and the carers did great work, as did mum, in taking care of him properly. Dad WAS taken care of very well in his latter years. He had an active life, despite his frail condition, and mum was a
wonderful lady to
stand so dutifully by her husband and ensure he had the best of care for him in
his latter years. He deserved it as well, and I have very fond memories of our final years together.


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