It's very much a matter of perspective, though, isn't it?

To my Dad, a 'good' man was one who embraced responsibility and looked to take on as much as he could handle, so that people who couldn't cope with it didn't have to. Someone who put 100% of his effort into whatever he did. It upset him that I didn't put more effort into my work, he didn't agree with my view that what I put in was only ever going to be proportionate to what I got out. "If they want more out of me," I'd tell him, "then they'd better start paying me more!" Later, when he saw me putting 100% into Anne and the kids, he rethought his own values. He didn't like that I wasn't prepared to take on a management job, even when I pointed out that to do so would be hypocritical because of my union role, because he thought I was letting myself and others' down. I thought "God help anyone stuck with me as a manager!" Plus I had no time for office politics, brown-nosers and backstabbers.

As to 'nice', that's down to the fact that you're nobodys' fool and you get my respect. If you were some lackwit like 'A Mere Hack', constantly shouting the odds and talking down to everyone, or a pseudo-liberal, ersatz-woke Duckspeaker stomping over everyone elses' views, rights and consciences in ethically-sourced jackboots, you'd think differently, I assure you!

I once said to Anne, "D'you think I'm a Alpha male or a Beta male?" She said. "Neither, you're an Omega male!" I asked "A what?". She said "Omega male. The last man anyone wants to get on the wrong side of!" She's as daft as me, mind!

But yes, I believe he went quietly - he was never one to make a fuss. In the interest of full disclosure , I have been informed today that my mother has been taken into hospital with breathing problems, and that they don't expect her to recover without radical interventions for which she is far too frail. I don't think they expect her to last the night. They never liked being apart.