Dear Dad ,
Up on one of my shelves at home is a book . I don't intend on reading again anytime soon but despite this it stays there on that shelf and never gets contemplated as something to go in the sack destined for the charity shop.
A biography of snooker player Stephen Hendry , its a subject I have no interest in anymore like I did when I had a passing fancy for him at about the age of 13 but I'll never throw away for simply one reason , you bought it for me.
There it was one Christmas years ago , something you'd gone out and bought just for me because you knew I'd like it . It wasn't a regular occurrence in our house usually mum was the sole xmas present buyer and you were glad to let her get on with it but here it was a special present labelled up " To Nina love from dad " . You'd even taken me to see the man himself play an exhibition match a couple of months earlier at the Woodville halls in Gravesend , it might not seem like much to others reading this now but at the time I was delighted ( he was actually really friendly and charming at the meet and greet afterwards despite his media image that portrayed him as a bit grumpy )and the book took pride of place in my bedroom bookcase.
As the years passed by the fancy for him faded just like the one I'd had for Phillip Schofield and Morten from A-ha previously ( although I have to admit pip is a bit of a silver fox these days , sorry pre menopausal hormones kicking in there and don't get me started on chris packham, cor i'd still go " really wild" for him now ! ) and the reality of real boyfriends not imaginary ones started to kick the teenage hormones raging around my body into gear.
Quite luckily for you I was a bit of a late starter on the boys front , I didn't have my first proper boyfriend till I was in my late teens and when I did bring my first one home I saw you take stock of his long Goth rocker curly hair and I'm pretty sure the fact he wore more make up than me and nail varnish wasn't lost on you but you were still polite to him because he was with me . He did turn out to be a total wally in the end but you never said I told you so just let me do what I thought I needed to do to try and find my way along in life . I was aware that you called him " the yeti " in true dad from citizen smith style behind his back but looking back he did deserve it , he was a truly pretentious bad poetry writing twat !As if to show your appreciation that I'd finally come to my senses every other person who I went out with after that was gifted with the observation " are you sure he's here for you he's a bit ......normal looking ".
We never really fell out over boys , so what did we fall out over , oh yes lets start with my clothing , a major headache that was between us but unlike other father/ daughters ours was never of the " youre not going out dressed like that " variety . no , ours were of the " are you really going to wear that out " kind . I'd always been your little girly girl as a youngster but as I grew up into a moody teenager in the early 90s the advent of grunge fashion and a desire to cut my hair short had you going mad that I wasn't making the best of myself and that I was never going to get a man dressed like that . My grandma , your mum even hinted one day after I'd had a particularly short haircut that maybe I batted for the other team , which while I did indeed have a massive girl crush on drew Barrymore was totally not who I was (I would totally still do drew though ). I still remember one Christmas day you refused to take me round to see the grandparents if I insisted on wearing my biker jacket and jeans.....
Which leads me into that common misconception lots of people have about you , my dad through other peoples eyes is the most easy going man ever , doesn't let anyone get him down , its the same with a lot of dads I reckon but lets face it kids there's always that one moment when you know its all going to kick off and its best to get as far away as possible . In our house it was called " throwing a wobbler " and you were famous for yours . You would go from nice amiable chap to the incredible hulk within a matter of seconds , this wouldn't be just a normal paddy this would be a full on freak out with special effects. these were sometimes brought on by you having bottled something bothering you up and then letting of steam but more often than not the common cause would be something to do with d.i.y. The story of how you lost your rag trying to get something level and knocked down the bannister with a hammer in your rage became the stuff of legend in our house and lets of course not for get the time you got a bit cross with us not putting our shoes away and kicked mums WOODEN clogs straight through the glass of the front door ( which got repaired after a couple of months only for you to do it again a few weeks later !). I can now see where my total lack of patience with anything vaguely difficult or intricate comes from , in fact I know that my threatening the computer with a bunch of fives when it wont do what I want it to is my page family inheritance right there .
I know there are some people who don't get on with their fathers and believe me I know we haven't always got on at times .
Be it the time I fell all the way down the stairs and instead of asking if I was ok you told me off for swearing loudly as I landed in a heap at the bottom or those times when you really didn't get why there wasn't time for you to take a shower before I had to be somewhere in the next 20 minutes. but underneath all the little niggles and foibles we have there has always been a lot of love there.
What person would have got up and driven to pick his kids up from a nightclub at 2 in the morning cos they couldn't get a cab or picked them up from that disastrous date where your beau had drunk so much he'd passed out snoring in a packed pub.
What other man would come out and pick his daughter up as she rang to say she'd walked out on her other half after he'd flown into a massive rage over something trivial and called her pathetic yet again to the point where she was starting to believe it.
what man would then tell her that if he doesn't like the way that other man speaks to you and will knock his block off if he does it in front of him ever again
and what man will tell the girl who thinks she's made an almighty cock up of being a parent that actually she's one of the best mums ever.
as Frenchie says in Grease
and in my family I guess that's true
Happy fathers day dad
love Nina xxx
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