Looney Tunes
When I was a lad, I developed the habit of entering the front room in mid air, diving through the door to land on the sofa in a reclining position. I thought this was cool as fuck; my dad would always shout at me for jumping on the sofa.

But, rather than impose any kind of Dickensian punishment, he solved the problem in his own unique way. He waited until I came flying in through the door as usual, then at the last minute whisked the sofa away.

I swear that I paused for a moment, suspended in mid-air at the height the sofa should have been, Bugs Bunny style, before landing in a crumpled heap on the floor.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 11:49, 4 replies)

No woman, no cry
It’s almost three years since I first posted this story under ‘Mix Tapes’, but as it’s really about being a dad, I thought maybe it was time for a re-post, for anyone that wasn’t around on this board three years ago, and for the rest of you, that appreciated it the first time around.
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Well, where to begin? (not so easy this is it?)

How about 1978? I was 17 and while not a geek - I’ve never been a geek - I was a nerd. Kind of. I was into Punk but wasn’t really a punk, I was tall and a bit spotty and I liked maths. My best friend Nick however, was cool. He was a ladies’ man and bass guitarist with a punk band Mary Poppins and the Vinyl Flamingoes for anyone that remembers). We’d known each other since junior school and had become best friends in about the 3rd year.

I was more political than him, thanks to my elder brother. I went on marches a lot and in the holidays I got together with like minded friends from school and we’d volunteer down at the Anti-Nazi League HQ, stuffing envelopes etc. We were keen and our hearts were in the right place. I also got to mix with girls, though I was yet to have a girlfriend, and one of the girls was Manisha. She was a year younger than me - still in the 5th form, but would soon be a lower-6th former. She was born in South Africa and was a ‘Cape coloured’, i.e. her parents’ families came originally from India. The whole family was heavily involved in the struggle against apartheid: her grandfather and uncle were lawyers and belonged to the same practise as Nelson Mandela (before his imprisonment, that is); her auntie had been imprisoned for a time on Robben Island. When Manisha and her brother Anand were 6 and 4, the family had fled to the UK where they claimed political asylum. Ten years on, the family were still not UK citizens but ‘stateless’ i.e. they had no passports.

As well as being highly political aware, Manisha was a peach and I fancied her silently but fervently from afar. We got on very well and soon we were both part of a tight group of mates. This was great until the tragedy stuck; she and Nick fell in love. It was full-blown teenage love and I made the best of things, i.e. suffered silently and became a much bruised gooseberry.

I got a Saturday job in a department store restaurant kitchen and when Manisha was looking for a job too, I put in a good word for her and she got a job as a waitress. This gave me more opportunity to eat my heart out, but it also gave us time to get to know each other better. As the ‘middle-man’, I could give sound relationship advice, listen to her moans and gripes etc. I found it easy to talk to her and we became very good friends.

Then the two of them broke up. I had both of them crying on my shoulders - I’ve always been a good listener, but this tried my patience somewhat. Anyway, it meant that we saw less of each other except at work as I didn’t want to be disloyal to Nick.

I’ll skip forward here to 1980. I’d got decent grades for Maths, Further Maths, Economics and Government & Politics A Levels and was now an accounting student at Southampton University. I managed to lose the ‘V-plates’ at long last [thanks Trish!] and was a studious student as those things go. My musical taste was a bit left-of-centre, more punk and reggae than heavy metal and I was pathetically glad to be ‘interesting’ as far as accountancy students go - and believe me, that’s not far.

Half way through the year I got a letter from Manisha! She was thinking of going to Southampton too and wanted to visit. Fine! She came down, but with some boyfriend in tow. I spent a day showing them round before they went back to London.

The next time I saw her was a scene straight out of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ - the one where George Bailey meets Mary at the college party - except this time it was the freshers’ ball. She’d finished with the boyfriend by then and at 18 she looked sensational. I mean jaw-droppingly gorgeous. No, that doesn’t even come close. Well, you’ve all been in love at 19 haven’t you? Is there anything better in the whole world? We spent that night in my room in the house I was sharing with two other guys from our school and a friend of ours. That year, she hardly spent a single night in her room in halls. I’ll leave the details to your over-fertile imaginations, this isn’t the place. She loved teasing me though, in more ways than one, and used to call me ‘Beenie Man’ - the reggae lovin’ bean counter.

Things went smoothly, I graduated with a first after a final year in which we’d shared our own flat - just like an old married couple. Our musical tastes coincided exactly, and one of the happiest days I can remember was when Clint Eastwood and General Saint played at the Uni. We were both right down at the front, lightly stoned, grooving away as if…sod it, can’t think of a good analogy, but you get the picture. In contrast, although I can’t remember where I was when I heard John Lennon was dead, I can picture exactly the scene as we sat up in bed listening to Radio 1 when it was announced that Bob Marley had died. We put ‘Redemption Song’ on so loud I couldn’t hear her crying. We loved that album, and I’d tease her sometimes when she took an age to get ready or something: “Bob’s right you know - ‘no woman, no cry’. Get a bloody move on!”

“I like a man who cries,” she’d say,

“OK, you can stay.”

The next year I moved back to London and rented a flat in Walthamstow. Manisha came up to stay weekends and holidays and had a room in halls for week days. I’d got a job with one of the ‘Big Five’ accounting firms and was also taking an MBA. They sponsored it and gave me time off too, I was earning good money and was happy.

As soon as Manisha graduated (History and Politics) we got married. Just a small registry office thing. Her parents were devout communists, and I’m a non-practising reform Jew. Now she could finally get a passport as she was a UK citizen. We used it first time for our honeymoon in the Maldives.

Although house prices were rising fast in London by then - this was 1983 - we were both working and we found a real do-er up-er round the corner within our limit.

Skip again a couple of years and 1986, Manisha became pregnant. I’d got my MBA and a promotion and we decided she should take a couple of years off work to be a Mum. She was working for the GLC and it was about to be abolished anyway, so we thought it must be fate.

Now, if you or your partner has been pregnant you will know about the changes the female body goes through. One of them is the enlargement of the breasts - this is necessary to produce milk of course - but Manisha had a large birthmark on her left breast. It was made up of lots of tiny moles really close together, making a dark, raised area, looking something like a relief map of Crete but about four or five inches across. As her breasts grew, so did this birthmark, and it started to itch too. It had never caused any sort of bother before, but this was a bit disturbing, so off to the GP we went. She took a look, asked some questions and said that it was probably nothing to worry about but she’d make a note to take another look after the baby was born.

This is where the mix tape comes in for the first time. From other posts, this seems to be fairly common - I think that’s down to Dr Miriam Stoppard and her babycare/pregnancy books. I think it was in her checklist of things to put in the ‘birthing bag’. Anyway, on this little beauty was a load of reggae of course: Marley, Culture, Burning Spear, Misty in Roots, plus a load of punk tracks like Buzzcocks - ‘Ever fallen in love with someone’; Ian Dury - ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’; Xtc ‘Making plans for Nigel’; Ruts ‘Babylon’s burning’; The Higsons ‘Conspiracy’; Madness ‘My girl’s mad at me’; Elvis Costello ‘(I don’t want to go to) Chelsea’ etc etc. I won’t bore you with the full listing.

August 1987 she was born - our little Jasmine - and you know when I mentioned 19 year olds in love earlier - well that was as nothing compared to the feeling you get holding your own tiny little child in your arms, well not quite, but different. I can’t explain it to you if you’ve not got any kids, and if you have, then I don’t need to .

All was well at bean-counting towers. I took a couple of weeks off work and we adjusted to the little one, she seemed to like us…

…in September, the doctor sent a letter reminding us about checking out the birthmark. This time, she suggested a specialist look at it, and the best place would be the Royal Marsden. OK, well, hmmm, I suppose that’s the best place, you know best etc. The doctor arranged it and in early February 1988 she went in for a biopsy. Now I didn’t know what this meant and was scared to ask really, but Manisha said they’d look at the birthmark and see whether it was benign or malign. No point worrying til then. I hadn’t realised they would cut the whole thing out!

She went in with an over-night bag, including tape and walkman, by taxi - she didn’t want us dropping her off as Jazzy would be asleep. I kissed her goodbye and arranged to visit the next day which would be February 13th - I promised to bring some flowers and the baby.

When we arrived at the ward the next afternoon in visiting time laden down with a dozen red roses and a bundled up baby I was shocked. All the other women on the ward looked to be in a really bad way. Quite a few were bald from chemotherapy, lots looking not just old but ancient, wasted, drained, all life sapped away. And there was Manisha, propped up in bed, a huge bandage on her chest under her nightgown. Jaz spotted her and reached her tiny arms out towards her, but a nurse swooped down on us, saying, something like: let me take her for a minute while you two have a talk - before snatching her away, cooing in her 6-month old adorable face passing her around the nurses and patients as if we weren’t there. Like a fairy, drawing colour with a wand in a black and white cartoon, her presence brought forth smiles, spreading down the ward in her wake.

With one eye on the nurse, I went to talk with Manisha, who was a bit upset not to have Jasmine in her arms, but otherwise seemed OK. They didn’t have the results of the test yet and she’d have to stay another night, but all being well would be home in a couple of days. I found a vase for the roses, reclaimed the baby, chatted about this and that and when visiting ended at 5.30, off we went.

The phone was ringing as I opened the front door - not an easy manoeuvre with a bundle of baby on your hip and a bag of nappies etc. in the other hand. It was still ringing though and I reached it in time to answer.

“Mr Bean-counter?”
“Yes,”
“It’s the Royal Marsden here,”
“Oh yes,” Jasmine was wanting to be put down so I said, “just a sec,” while I put her down.
“Mr Bean-counter,”
“Yes,”
“It’s about your wife,”
“Yes,”
“There’s been a complication,” possibly the four most horrible words in the English language.
“Yes,” my brain had frozen and my body was shutting down, “what is it?”
“It was just after you left. She suffered a pulmonary embolism - a blood clot lodged in her pulmonary artery and cut off the blood supply to her lungs. The thing is, she had her Walkman on and her eyes closed and by the time the nurse noticed and called the doctor I’m afraid it was too late. She died just after 6.00pm. I’m so very sorry Mr Bean-counter.”

Even today, there are tears running down my face and dripping into the whiskey glass shaking in my hand. The shock at that time was total - luckily, it numbed some of the pain, and time passed in a fog. I couldn’t describe the next few weeks even if I wanted to. My Mum came to stay and looked after Jasmine while I was sorting out things and crying myself to sleep. I took a month off work to think what to do, anyway, I could barely count to ten.

I found a nursery that would take Jasmine while I was at work, but after two weeks I handed in my resignation. The people at work were great but I just didn’t want to be there, I couldn’t bear to leave Jasmine at the nursery in the mornings. I decided to move to Southampton and set up as a self-employed accountant. That way I could work from home. At least I didn’t have to worry about money for a while. The life insurance paid off the mortgage, I put the house on the market. In the short time we’d been there the value had shot up, I sold up and bought a big place in Southampton which would serve as home and office.

I played that tape I’d made for her over and over again. The first track was ‘No woman, no cry’. By the way, Bob was wrong, so very, very wrong. I just tried holding on to the lines that said “Everything’s going to be alright”, but it was a damned close run thing at times. By the time Jasmine was a year old, she must have heard the tape over a hundred times, and “Don’t worry, Jaz, everything’s going to be alright” was a kind of mantra of mine.

You have to pull yourself together when you’re looking after a baby, and if there was one thing keeping me going it was Jasmine. There was so much of Manisha’s face in hers…

God, I wish that was the end of my story.

Briefly, over the next few years, I built up a business doing books for small and medium sized businesses in the area. I could do it virtually in my sleep which was good, and it kept me busy, which was also good. I made some friends, got recommended. One of my old housemates still lived in Southampton and taught at the University and Manisha’s family (especially Anand and his wife) as well as my family visited a lot, so I had plenty of human contact. Quite a few of my clients were self-employed builders and tradesmen, one was Steve who was a plumber. When his daughter Michelle wanted to open a hairdressing salon, he asked me to look after the finances for her. Steve and his mates did the place up for her for the cost of the materials and she’d done an apprenticeship, had HND and whatnot, she was in her mid-20s, pretty, unattached; I was in my early thirties by this time and hadn’t wanted or sought out female company since Manisha died six or so years previously.

You may doubt this was so, but firstly, my heart was burnt to ashes, secondly, I’d turned off this part of my life and thirdly, I was a single Dad with a little kid - not so easy to do anything about it, even if I wanted to. But, little by little, I got friendly with Michelle. She was…undemanding company but she actually made me laugh and I could tell she liked me. She got me to bring Jasmine to her shop and did her hair for her, which thrilled her, as I was her usual hairdresser at that time. I still didn’t make any move though and it was her idea in the end - she invited both of us for dinner at her place…

…Six months on and she’d come and stay at our place at weekends. She left womanly bits and pieces in the bathroom, took over a couple of drawers in my bedroom. I went along with things, maybe I shouldn’t have.

It was a couple of weeks before Valentine’s Day. You can imagine how I felt about that date. She wanted to go out to a restaurant but I told her not to come the following week as we wanted to be alone and we’d be up in London, visiting Kew Gardens, where Manisha’s ashes were scattered in the bluebell wood. I suppose she felt it was time for me to ‘get over it’ and get on with life. I disagreed, we went to bed in foul moods and woke up the same way. At breakfast, Jasmine was acting up; I was making a pot of coffee, so I didn’t see what happened but Michelle started shouting at Jasmine. As I turned round, Jasmine threw a spoonful of cereal at Michelle and Michelle pulled her out of her seat and smacked her on the bum… …before I knew what was happening, I’d pulled Michelle’s arm round with my left hand and smacked her across the face with the flat of my right hand, then I was shouting in her face “IF YOU SO MUCH AS EVER TOUCH ONE HAIR OF THAT CHILD’S HEAD AGAIN, SO HELP ME, I’LL KILL YOU”

I bent down and gathered up the screaming Jasmine in my arms, ran out of the kitchen and up to her room, murmuring “Don’t worry Jaz, everything’s going to be alright.” When she’d calmed down a bit I said “OK Jaz, we’re going out for the day, get yourself dressed, I’ll be back up in a minute”

Back in the kitchen, Michelle was looking furious but hadn’t moved. “OK,” I said, “I’m really sorry I hit you, but this isn’t working. It was never going to work. I’m taking Jasmine out, clear all your stuff out before we get back.”

“You’re fucking dead you. I’m gonna tell my Dad you slimeball and you’re gonna wish you’d never been born.”

“Too fucking late for that you cow, been there, done it. Just get out and leave us alone.”

I took Jasmine to the seaside. We had a favourite place where there was a café and some shops on the front and a good long beach. At times of stress I still sometimes fall back on cigarettes, at that time I did. I very rarely smoke in front of Jaz but I did then. We went into the café, got a table by the window, I got me a large black coffee and a hot chocolate and a cake for Jaz and I smoked, staring out of the window at the cold blustery February morning.

“Daddy, what was Mummy really like?” Jasmine asked as I lit a second cigarette. I couldn’t get a word out at first, but the tears started again. She came round the table and gave me a huge hug, “Don’t worry Daddy, everything’s going to be alright,” she said.

“That’s right Jaz,” I said, “everything’s going to be alright. Let’s take a walk on the beach, and I’ll tell you all about Mummy.” We spent a couple of hours walking along the beach, throwing stones in the water, picking up shells, and I told her stories about when the two of us were young students, or when we were working together as 6th formers and when we were newlyweds before she was born.

When we got back to the house the front door was wide open. Shit.

I went inside first and made Jasmine wait just outside the front door. I stopped in the doorway to the living room. Inside, all of the photos of me and Manisha had been smashed and crumpled or torn and all over the room was tape. She’d taken the special tape and pulled it all out of the cassette, stretching it and tying it around things, yards and yards of thin brown tape, totally beyond repair. I stumbled out and into the rest of the rooms; the bedroom was a mess and all over the house the photos had been broken. Luckily that was all.

I had re-prints made of all the photos from the negatives and I made the tape again. I knew the order of songs off by heart and still had most of them on disc, though some now had scratches and jumps where they hadn’t the first time I’d taped them.

I’ve met a few women since, but I’ve not brought them home. I’ve not met anyone I’d trust that far. Jaz knows that I’m always there for her. A couple of years ago she went off to university and it was as if I’d lost an arm; I’m still trying to get used to it. The house is so damned quiet all the time. She knows if she’s feeling low, I’ll drive the 450 mile round trip to bring her home at a minute’s notice.

Each February at the nearest weekend, we go to the same beach, come rain or shine and I tell her stories about her Mum. The next day we drive up to London, we used to listen to the tape, then the c.d., now it’s a playlist. Then we wander round the woods at Kew and I tell her more stories. As she’s got older, I find I can tell her different stories, I think she knows her Mum pretty well now.

Thanks for listening - I don’t feel any better yet, but I can see that I will do soon. Sorry it was so long.
(A Bean Countin' Man Takes off socks to count past 10, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 11:47, 28 replies)

My guilty pleasure
is answering questions 139 weeks late - and with a massively tired joke to boot.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 11:40, 2 replies)

Fly a Kite
Having 2 brothers and a sister meant that rather than get taken abroad as kids, we'd invariably get woken up at some crazy hour and packed into the car along with most of the house for a trip to Scotland or Cornwall year upon year.

After the usual bickering about who can 'lean on who' to sleep on the way, I would get stuck in the middle seat and lean between them most of the way annoying my Dad with inane questions about things spotted along the way. To his credit he had remarkable patience to put up with me asking questions he couldn't possibly answer about such things as "how many houses a pylon carried electricty for?" etc.

Once we reached our destination one year around 8am, we stopped in a carpark somewhere in Scotland for a cuppa and to stretch our legs.

As usual within about 5 minutes of arriving, so did about 15 other cars and they all had to park next to use, even though the carpark was about an acre square.

Having had a cuppa and some by now rather sweaty sandwiches, we decided we MUST fly the kite w'd brought with us. Dad duly got it out of the boot after about half an hour of rooting through through the 'essentials' Mum had packed.

Following a few failed attempts by us kids to launch the Kite, Dad took it upon himself to show us how it was done and started off on a run across the carpark. As we watched he turned to ensure the wind would catch it properly and started running backwards...

We could all see it coming, but as we began to start frantically warning him, Mum told us all to "shhh"!" Getting up quite a lick now THWACK!

He hit the now open car door of one of our fellow travellers and went clean over it backwards, landing in a heap that can only be decribed as the aftermath of a horror movie, with arms and legs everywhere.

Mum started howling with laughter and in time we followed suit (he wouldn't be getting up for a while after all). As the family of the car door he hit helped him up, we cried and cried with laughter until he began tenderly walking back towards us. Seeing us laughing he snapped the kite in half, kicked us all back into the car and we sat in silence all the way to our final destination as Mum broke into giggles every few minutes.

Needless to say I didn't ask any more questions along the way...
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 11:36, Reply)

Big Louie and the massive chip.
In his youth, my dad had a cheery, rotund friend called John, but was known by everyone as Big Louie.

One evening they were staggering home from the pub and my dad, feeling peckish, stopped off at the local grease-vendors for some fish and chips.

"D'ya wanna chip, Louie?" Asks dad.
"Aye, I'll have that biggun there" Says Louie.

... and he took the fish. Scarfed it in one.
( Droog is too orangey for crows, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 11:35, Reply)

The wrong dump
My dad was awesome, clever, but not really on the ball in many ways.

The phone rang once on a quiet Sunday afternoon. It was my dad, incredibly angry for some reason with my brother who was blameless in this situation, because he'd found himself locked into 'the wrong dump'.

For reasons which will never be known, instead of going to the usual dump round the corner, he'd tootled off into the urban wastes of Birmingham, nipped into an industrial area he presumably thought looked 'dumpy enough' and done a bit of unintentional fly tipping.

There was a skip apparently - why he thought a lone skip in a car park was a municipal dump in a major city God knows.

Anyway while he was doing his fly tipping the security guard had been doing his rounds, failed to notice my dad, and locked the gates for the day.

My poor brother ended up spending the day ringing around security contractors trying to find out who looked after the building, so they could release my incandescent and by now chain smoking father from his impromptu dumpy prison.
(sparagus14, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 11:30, Reply)

Dad cough
I have developed the very same "dad cough" that used to drive shame into me as a teenager. It starts as one cough but ricochets about three or four times
ending in either a bob fleming (fast show) style finish or just petering off. These days when i start to cough my daughter looks at me with the same "jesus fucking christ not again"
look i must have given my dad when he did it whilst i was living at home.

As a added bonus for my child i also blow my nose with a elephant roar and look at the blow out on the hanky / cloth / tea towel insert other.
Being a dad has its good and bad points that's for sure.
(Cov Boy, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 11:16, Reply)

Nice
Bein' a grandad
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AY9yOHI6zo&feature=player_profilepage
( MaxineBasset Betty Basset Bombs are Better, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 11:14, Reply)

Local knowledge
My parents have holidayed in the same Spanish resort on and off for about 14 years. They like it, so hey ho. This means they know the place well and my Dad always likes to demonstrate his local knowledge by pointing things out to me when I visit them. He has kind of run out of interesting things to point out over time, but this doesn´t seem to bother him in the slightest.

One night, walking back from having a few beers, he pointed across the street:

"See that bin?"
"Yeah"
(Proudly) "I´ve used that bin"

Fucking revelatory....

He also tries to show off his knowledge of Indian food when ordering in restaurants. His request for Prawn Tikka, on the bone went down in family legend.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 11:03, 2 replies)

The Nun's Shirt.
My Dad and I sing with the same choir. Since we live on opposite sides of the country, we tend to meet most often when we're rehearsing or performing.

One day, I'm on my way down to a gig in London and I realise I've forgotten my fancy-dancy gigging shirt. I know my Dad's been down there for a while and is probably out about town, so I text him and ask him to buy a shirt for me, and I'll pay him when I get there.

Dad dutifully replies in the affirmative, then texts to ask me my collar size.
I have absolutely no idea.

I tell Dad this and he texts back:
'Nun says your shirt size is X'

He'd obviously meant to type 'Mum', but decrepit fingers and predictive text are not a good combination.

So I text back:
'That Nun swore she'd be discreet.'

And now a word from the man himself:
"If I ever have to explain my eldest son's personality to someone, I now tell them this story. Sharp enough to come up with a response like that in two seconds flat. Daft enough not to know his collar size in the first place."
(universalpsykopath loves what you've done with your hair., Fri 26 Nov 2010, 10:58, Reply)

A repost but worth telling again in this context.
My dad always bought cheap cars at auctions but cannily made sure he had full AA membership so he could get home when they inevitably conked out on him. This saved us a couple of times while driving through France or returning from Calais loaded up with too much beer and Blanc de Blanc. I think he actually lost count of the amount of times he was towed or carried back to base in the UK. Definitely got his money's worth.

In the early 2000s he was diagnosed with stomach cancer and was having a dreadful time fighting it. My brother (in Devon) and I (in London) visited him at home in Yorkshire one weekend when he really wasn't very well at all. He suggested it would be a good idea if we took his car (a silver Skoda Favorit if I remember correctly) thinking it would make it easier for us to see him as we both lived so far away. So, when we left I drove the car to London and my brother drove himself from there to Devon. We'd agreed to go back the following weekend.

Sadly, dad's situation worsened towards the end of that week (he was now in hospital) so my brother and I decided we should get back up there as soon as possible. He'd just finished work and said he'd set off soon and would call me on the way from Devon. He'd be in London around midnight.

By 1am I was getting worried that he hadn't shown up. I'd been in telephone contact with my family at the hospital and our dad's condition was grave. By 2am I still hadn't heard from my brother. I was getting pretty frantic - a mixture of desperately wanting to get to the hospital and hoping like hell he hadn't crashed the car in his efforts to get to me.

At 5am, still with no sign of my brother, I had a call from my sister. Dad had died. I really didn't know what to do at that point. At about 6am my brother finally turned up. He'd been so knackered he'd pulled over for a quick nap and woken up several hours later. Anyway, he was here now, I broke the news to him and we decided the best thing would be to set off straight away. Since he'd had some sleep he agreed to drive.

So there we were, driving up north in a crappy Skoda to join our grieving mother and sisters. Two brothers in a complete daze, barely able to speak and wondering what the hell could possibly be awaiting us. At least we had the car. Twenty miles from home there was a loud bang and smoke started pouring out from under the bonnet. We managed to pull into a service station a little way up the road. I think at this point we both thought the same thing at the same time: "What the fuck are we going to do now?"

We popped the bonnet, and even though neither of us were mechanically minded we could tell we were going nowhere. We sat in the car wondering what we could do to get home. Should we abandon it and get a taxi? Not enough money on us, and anyway, we were next to a motorway. Should we hitch? Not a good idea as it was now pouring with rain. Could we swap the knackered car for some bikes? My brother's idea, not mine. In the end, and as it was now late afternoon, we decided to do the one thing we really didn't want to do - call our mother. To her credit, not only did she take the news of us breaking down in such circumstances very calmly indeed, she came up with a brilliant suggestion: "What about the AA?" Why hadn't we thought of that!? Oh, hang on a minute, dad was covered personally, not the car. Damn. It was then our mother had her second brilliant idea of the day. My brother has the same initial as our father. Just call the AA and pretend to be him.

So, after a few minutes spent mustering whatever courage he could, my dear brother called the AA. He confirmed his (ie dad's) name and address and membership number. His date of birth proved to be something of a problem though. Somehow, I remembered what it was. "31st May 1947," I whispered to him. "Who was that in the background?" asked the woman on the other end of the phone. "Oh, that's my son," replied my younger brother. After he'd said, "I don't have that information with me," a couple of times he gave the car registration and our location and I realised that this might just work. In fact, someone was to be with us within half an hour. So we waited.

As we waited, the sheer ridiculousness of the situation began to dawn on us. My brother had just impersonated his own recently deceased father in order to get roadside assistance for the broken down car our dad had given us so we could visit him on his death bed. An AA mechanic was to turn up expecting to find a fifty five year old man and his son, but would instead find two (half) brothers who really don't look an awful lot like one another, one supposedly the father despite the fact he's quite obviously a good bit younger than the supposed son who is in fact thirty one years old. If asked to prove he was who he said he was my brother reckoned he could hold his credit card between his finger tips in such a way that his middle initial (C) looked a bit like the L of our father's middle name. It didn't look very convincing. In fact it looked so stupid we both burst into fits of hysterical laughter. I don't think I've ever laughed so much before or since. It was weird. We finally decided we'd come clean with the AA guy when he arrived, though we had serious doubts we could tell him of our plight without laughing, something which would seriously undermine the credibility of our story. He finally showed up two hours later, by which time we'd regained our composure. He put our car on the back of his truck and we finally arrived at our parents' house fourteen hours after our dad had passed away. Despite being in a terrible state, my mother made sure (as always) the AA guy got a bottle of wine for his troubles (probably one they'd helped bring back from Calais) and my brother and I embarked on the worst week of our lives.

Sorry for the length of this but it's the only way I can tell it.
(Haywood Manley, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 10:09, 4 replies)

My Dad the legend? Try tosspot
I've never really gotten on with my dad. He liked Football, I liked reading. He liked going out on the lash and shagging his secretary, I liked going out with guys my own age and shagging them.

The straw which broke the camels back however was something so trivial that I'm amazed it's come to no contact with him, his wife and my three siblings...

It was my youngest (at the time) sister Christening, I'd been asked to be the God-parent which naturally was no problem, so I packed up some clothing and took the two hour journey to Amersham and settled in for a night. I got there, "hello! hello! hello!" from my step-mum, my dad? "What clothes you wearing", ah cheers, thanks.

I bring out my clothes, some Khaki's and a white shirt, as I've mentioned in another post those horrible black work trousers bring me out in a rash and wearing them for any period of time is literally torture. He takes one look at my clothes, walks upstairs and literally *throws* some of his old clothes at me saying "wear them", and then walks off leaving me and his wife in stunned disbelief.

Rest of the night passes awkwardly as I struggle to figure out am I a 12y/o child being told what to do or a 26y/o man who actually can wear what the fuck I want? So in the morning, I wake up and put on my clothes to both my SM's and Dad's horror. My dad refuses to look at me and just walks off, my SM asks me "why won't you consider wearing them?" to which I reply with the last thing I've said to my dad and SM for a year and a half:

"If the clothes are so important to you then why don't you make the clothes the God-parent instead of me? If you want me to the God-parent then let me wear my own God damn clothes".

My SM looks like I'd hit her with a shovel after digging up her (hopefully) dead grand parents and sodomizing them both with a giraffe. Yes I felt guilty but my dad? Wouldn't even look at me.

We go to the Christening and the rest of my family does the same, lots of whispers about "lack of respect" and "who does he think he is" while I'm pointing out the glaringly obvious fact that all the men there are also wearing Khaki trousers due to the cold weather but apparently, what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander. It's only right that the God parent should freeze his arse off for the sake of a few photos.

We do the Christening, I get the next train home and all due to a pair of trousers my dad no longer refuses to speak to me nor allow any official photos of me with my God-son as apparently I "didn't look the part", which he could only tell me through my older sisters. As a result, this was the last time I saw my brother Liam who is now 18 months old, my sisters Jenny and Anna who are 3 & 4 and another one on the way.

Apologies for the lack of funniez, rather cathartic reading this back. Normally family schisms are caused by men not being able to keep their trousers on at the right time, my schism was caused by keeping mine on...
(Helo, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 10:09, 91 replies)

No dad- virgin birth. I'm special.
Wish it had of been to save my family from the horror that is my ex-father. Violent, nasty ass-twat who was the bogeyman. We used to hide in cupboards and under the bed, so in fact we were the nightmarish thing of other kids lives.

Getting real joy from other stories, though.
(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 10:06, 2 replies)

Do these have to be funny?
Like many navy personnel my dad was sent to the Falklands. Unlike many others he did a lot of killing. The information we got from him about his experiences came in small drunken tales told through held back tears throughout my childhood usually involving the consumption of alcohol. It's generally felt within the family that some of the things he had to do out there were not exactly above board.

Family life was fairly normal until 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. My dad went from being a guy that liked a drink to a full blown drunk. He was always bought up to show no signs of weakness. His father had been in the navy and had bought him up hard. He was terrified of being sent to the Gulf and rather than show his weakness he drank and took it out on my mother, my sister and me. My sister was 7 and I was 9, my brother was only 2 so avoided it. We were all beaten for the tiniest thing. I was kicked across rooms, in to shelves and up and down stairs. My sister received similar treatment. My mother lost teeth, had her head put through internal walls and was beaten regularly. He didn't want to see us afterwards and for weeks at a time we would eat meals in separate rooms and only see him in passing in our own house.

My sister and I were scared of him but I cannot imagine how scared my mum was as she wouldn't leave him. 5 years later he was sent to America for 3 months. I was 14 by then and told my mum that it was time to go. She refused. I phoned around, arranged a house viewing, explained the situation to the letting agent and paid the deposit with the savings account my great granddad had set up for me before he died. I then told mum we were leaving and we did.

She never told him she was leaving and never told him where she had gone. She started to seem stronger, started to stand up for herself. She allowed him visitation but never told him where we lived. I hated the visitation, all he talked about was mum and how she had no reason to leave. He claimed he had never hit her, even when I screamed at him that he had hit us all and I had seen all the things he did to mum he would deny it. It amazing how people can lie to themselves and believe it. Mum lost all her friends, they were all navy wives and basically thought that if she put up with it for 5 years it can't have been that bad. Even her family stayed friends with him and he regularly visited my mums sister in London. He turned her whole family against her.

Then he was arrested for assault. A serious assault. I won't go in to details but it was the kind of assault that means jail time. Suddenly all the people that had thought we were lying for years were apologising, not bad only took 9 years. He was out on bail awaiting trail and I had moved to London ready to start my first week at university.

Then I got a call, it was 11pm the day before a big bomb scare near Clapham Junction in 2000. They had found him in his car, in his garage, hose attached to the exhaust. He had boxed up his whole life, hung up his uniform instructing us that he was to be cremated in it. He had made his last meal and gone to the garage with it. He was found with half a plate of food and a glass of wine. There were several notes left ranging from sober instructions to drunken scrawls blaming everyone he could think of as long as it wasn't him.

I started university two days later, I didn't go home for the funeral.

It was ten years this September since the suicide and though what he did to us for years was terrible I am starting to forgive him. I honestly believe that going to war and the fear of going back turned him in to the person he became. Perhaps if Iraq didn't invade Kuwait things would have been different and my mum would have more real teeth. Its made my brother in to quite an angry person who isn't scared of a confrontation, to me its done the opposite, I hate the idea of a fight, I hate the idea of war, I can't understand how in this age of technology we are still reduced to killing each other to sort out a problem.

If my dad wasn't sent to war, he would probably be alive today. There are more casualties than those who die on the battle field.
( Peej, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 10:02, 7 replies)

Favouritism
I am one of five kids. My Dad is brilliant, and insists he has no favourites...

"I hate the fucking lot of you".
(Thebigfella, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 10:00, Reply)