My father was a rich and powerful man, a father figure to his employees who adored him. He was a generous employer – if someone had a sick child he would pay for the entire family to go to Disneyworld, you know the sort of thing.
He came from a working class background and married my mother, an heiress, for her money. He was such a bullying and neglectful husband that she ended up having a nervous breakdown after 10 years of marriage and was never really the same again, dying when she was only 69. He had affairs during the marriage and one of these produced a child (he used to confide in me as when I was younger, I thought he was a working class hero too and fell for all his shtick like everybody else).
During the marriage my mother paid for everything and bought his business for him as he had no money, which he then built up into a hugely successful company. He also used some of my brother’s and my inheritance to fund the sale when we were children and this was put into shares (my mother’s parents also gave him money). As he had no outgoings he was able to put everything into the business which was worth millions when he died. He became a hero of the establishment, he promoted himself as a completely self-made man and won awards and gongs but as I grew older I began to see the holes in his story.
When my mother became ill he divorced her and repaid a pittance of her investment and her contribution to his success was airbrushed from history. He was certainly a brilliant businessman but there was no gratitude to those who had helped enable his success.
When I asked questions about the shares we owned in the `family’ business he would lie about how many we owned and would change the subject. He would make a virtue of disinheriting us as he said we had our shares – shares that were very difficult to liquidate. When I went on holiday with him as a young woman he would pay for himself to go in first class while I'd be in economy.
Before his death I realised I better get on with liquidating these shares as once he was dead the business was left to his employees and wouldn’t be sold. I ended up having to threaten him with legal action and eventually our shares were sold for far less than their true value but it was the best I could do.
I went no contact at this time as while he had been charming when he was younger as he grew older his cruel nature became more obvious. My elderly vulnerable aunt, his sister, told me she had been defrauded by him when he withheld her share of their mother’s house and confided that he had drowned my step grandmother’s cat. There were many instances of cruelty to people and animals too numerous to go into here.
I was the only person who ever challenged him. My brother is a bully too and when my father abused him would just accept it so as not to rock the boat. My brother would put me down at every opportunity and was desperate to be my father’s favourite but my father despised him until I went no contact and appointed my brother his executor. My brother benefited from the sale of our shares but left it to me to do all the unpleasant work so as to keep in my father’s good books. I did think about contesting the will as he’s taken so much from my family, particularly my mother whose estate was affected substantially by his financial abuse, but no doubt this would be a waste of time.
As he was dying I was put under pressure to visit him but I never did. You’ll regret it I was told but the truth is I am so relieved I didn’t go. He had an enormous swanky funeral but nobody went to his cremation the next day, which sort of says it all.
The purpose of this post is to get this off my chest and to provide an example of how rich and powerful men get away with murder and so often are not accountable for the havoc they leave behind. At his funeral people came up to me and told me what a great man my father was but I remained silent. How many `great men’ of history are not very great at all? Rather a lot I would imagine. We all want to feel proud of our parents but I feel so ashamed of him. That is what is hardest to bear.