Today is the made up holiday of Father’s Day, doubtless invented by card manufacturers and restaurateurs to squeeze yet more cash from us drones or something.
Cynicism aside, I cannot but reflect on being a Dad, and remember my own Dad, dead these 16 or so years, long burned and his ashes in the cold ground.
Being a Dad is the greatest thing I have ever done. Nothing I have ever experienced (and I think I have experienced a bit) comes close to the moment when my first child grabbed my finger, or when I held my second child, untimely wripped, in a blanket, tiny and small.
Since then they have given me nothing but joy. Joy and desperation and anger and pride and frustration and pleasure and fear and terror and astonishment and laughter and tears and worry and all those many, many things that “nothing” becomes in these cliches. But joy, and pride.
Whenever anyone I know announces imminent parenthood, my only meaningful advice is to let them know that once you are a parent, you cannot remember not being a parent. You can remember stuff you did, places you went, clothes you wore, things you did, but you cannot remember being – being – anything other than a parent.
Today I also try and remember being a son. My Dad, at some point a long time ago suddenly realised he couldn’t recall being a teacher’s son from Blackwood and could only recall being the father of a chubby blond boy from Manchester. I’m sure he did, just never got the chance to ask him about it.
My Dad never had any time for Father’s Day, ignored it at best, angry with it at worst. Good for him. Wish I had the innate irascibility to carry it through myself, but it’s more ingrained now.
So I recall my first (legal) pint. My first book (Goon Show Scripts. I was three). Walking Offa’s Dyke footpath the same summer that I Don’t Like Mondays was number 1. Being kept up to watch Python and Qs 7-9, at least. Watching a rugby team (no idea which) playing in red and shouting “Cymru am byth!” a barrel pint glass of lemonade in my hand.
I recall an impromptu lecture to a group of fellow ramblers in the Peak District when one asked why the cliff was reddy-brown, I recall fear and distance and anger and love, and most of all I recall carrying a very heavy wooden box on my shoulder and knowing it was too bloody soon to be doing that. Hardly got to know the man, only had 28 years.
I raise a glass to my Dad, and to being a Dad. And it makes me very happy.