My inspirational people is my Dad. Anthony (Tony) Roebuck.
My Dad came from a very underprivileged family, his mother was divorced from her first marriage (with 2 children) and married to his Dad - something still relatively unheard of at that time. He had 1 sister, and 2 step-siblings, there were 6 of them living in a 2 bed council house. His step sister had autism and took up alot of time and attention.
When he was 12 he came home from school to find his sister dead on the sofa aged 14, she had an undiagnosed heart condition.
Later that year his dad became ill and never really left the house until he died (when I was a child).
Despite alot of things against him, my dad did well at school, going to a grammer school as a teenager (when schools were chosen by ability) and bizarrely he learnt to play the guitar and joined a band with 2 teachers and spent his older teenage years gigging and drinking with teachers!
He finished school and was recruited to the local steel works, as most men did, he worked hard and met my mother there (she was a telephonist). Got married when he was 21, and had me and my sister a few years later. While I was growing up, he stayed at the steel works - including doing a paid degree through work including visiting Japan for several months to help them set up steel works.
He managed to bring me and my sister up excellently, by the time I was born we were living in a lovely house overlooking a field in a nice community and we had family holidays.
I never went wanting or without as a child, my Dad worked shifts and I remember many a time going to give him a cuddle at lunch time to get him up. He always supported me at school (and he loved art, maths and physics which I could never do).
During a freak work accident he had his hand crushed and lost his index finger on his left hand - and as part of the physio was recommended to learn to play and instrument. For the first time in years he bought a new guitar, and then started a band - still going in 2012!
As I got to 17 and to college he was made a senior manager at the steel works and stopped working shifts, we moved into a lovely new house a mile away from where we originally were. They are still there now, and love it. I moved away for a while which he helped with, and was there to take me to the pub when it all went horribly wrong.
Fast forward a couple of years to when I came out, and he met my future-husband, he wasnt happy originally - but eventually has been one of the most supporting people ever. He loves my hubby, sometimes I think more than me, we all go to the pub drinking and love spending time together and he is the best granddad to our children (including buying our boy a guitar recently).
He retired at 50, and decided he had worked hard all his life to support his family and it was his time! He started doing a history degree, which he has almost finished. And this week starts a part time job in a hospital doing some technical advice job, as he has got bored sat at home.
He has travelled to 4 out of 5 continents, spends his free time walking, in the pub with family or reading. Then a couple of times a year him and my mum go on far flung holidays, and comes back so excited to share his stories and normally photos sat on a barren beach with a beer.
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My Dad - the most hard working, focused and loving man ever. If I manage to achieve half of what he has in my life I'll be happy.
