Arthur John Frank Hinrich (15 Jul 1923 - 7 Jan 2017)

In loving memory of Arthur John Frank Hinrich who sadly passed away on 7th January 2017

My Dad - Arthur John Frank Hinrich - 15 July 1923 to 7 January 2017 - 93 years, 5 months, 23 days.

Dad was born in Chiswick, London in 1923.

He left school at 14 and, as far as I know, went straight to work at Balfour Beatty.

He was responsible for sourcing heavy plant for building roads, etc. and during the war sourced the plant used to construct The Churchill Barriers, a series of four causeways in the Orkney Islands used as naval defences to protect the anchorage at Scapa Flow, which now serve as road links, carrying the A961 road from Kirkwall to Burwick.

Additionally, he was a Fire Watch Man in WW2; too tired to go to the shelter after his shift, so he lay in his bed counting the bombs that dropped. After a certain number had boomed he knew he was safe.

Dad met My Mum, Margaret, after the war and they got married on 3 September 1955 in the local Methodist Church, where Dad was a Church Warden.

Together, in their spare time, they cycled around the UK, staying at youth hostels and holidaying at Methodist Guild Holiday hotels.

In 1967 I was born and Dad learnt to drive, so that, in 1969 we could move to Nottingham so that Dad could continue working with Balfour Beatty on Raynesway in Derby after the closure of the London office he worked in. It was either that or Croydon…

Dad always cut the hedge in his tie.

By his own admission, he wasn’t great at woodwork but he built a guinea pig hutch for my pet and a shelf in my bedroom to run my model railway along.

After retiring from Balfour Beatty in 1988, Dad took up Bowls and enjoyed coach and foreign holidays with Mum and their friends.

In 1995, Mum and Dad moved to a bungalow on Cloud Avenue from Moor Lane, where they’d lived for 26 years. He cared for their new gardens and spent many an hour pruning bushes and cultivating plants and seedlings under the watchful eye of my Mum.

After Mum died in 2008, he looked after himself for the rest of his life. He was determined to stay in his own home and be as self sufficient as possible. He enjoyed the visits of his Grand Children, Samuel and Amelie, and was keen to make sure that they had something nice for their birthdays and Christmas, even though he couldn’t get out much.

He visited us for Christmas this year and seemed very well, before being taken in on 3 January 2017.

He passed away on 7 January 2017 at the QMC in Nottingham.