My father, Gerard Byrne, who has died aged 83, had a wide range of jobs – from joiner to recycling officer – and an even wider range of hobbies and skills, ranging from woodworking to dressmaking and golf to snooker.
Born in Liverpool to John, a labourer, and Elizabeth (nee Lally), Gerry was brought up in the Scotland Road area of the city with two sisters, Elizabeth and Frances, and a brother, John. After spending some of the second world war years in care, he received a scholarship to St Francis Xavier’s college, but remembered the teachers resenting the scholarship children, so that one-by-one they all dropped out until Gerry, the last in his year, also left early.
As a result, Gerry’s working life started at 15, in a cafe on the Liverpool Dock Road. However, he soon took on an apprenticeship in joinery and over the years went on to do a variety of jobs, including as a salesman, building contractor, local government officer and, in his later years, recycling officer for Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority. Outside work he took on many roles in the local Catholic church, giving his time and expertise generously.
In 1961, after two years of national service, mainly in Germany, Gerry married Geraldine Monaghan, and they went to live with Geraldine’s extended family in Greasby, Wirral. Their first child, Gerard, was born in 1965, and two years later they moved into their own place three houses down the street, where they essentially lived for the rest of their lives, and where three more children, Charles, Kevin and me, were born.
Our childhoods were filled with a love of knowledge and debate fostered by our father. Thanks to his support and encouragement, all four of us went to university, the first people in our families to do so. A man of fierce intelligence, he would have made great use of higher education himself had the opportunity not been denied to him by the social strictures of his era.
Gerry retired in 2000 to look after our mother, who died the following year. He is survived by his four children and 13 grandchildren.
