I first met my dad when I was born. We didn’t really communicate too well at first. He used English. I mainly just screamed. Over time, the communication in our relationship became more of a two-way thing. Nowadays, I’d say we understand at least 60% of what the other one is saying.
I am very much like my dad in very many ways. One way is looks. When I was around 25, I was a little freaked out when found a photo of him looking identical to me when he was around 25. It made me wonder if I was actually a time traveller. We both had a very similar haircut and a very similar face. Now, over ten years later, we both have a very similar lack of hair and a very similar face.
Me and my dad share many of the same interests too. I didn't notice how much so until I was having a job interview a while ago and was asked to list my interests outside of work. I started talking about my love of music, which I think has been given to me from my dad playing records from as early as I can remember and from me borrowing his guitar and hitting it randomly. We may not always have the same tastes in music, he'll often talk to me about musicians I've barely heard of from approximately one million years ago, but we both have a love of music in general.
After mentioning music in my interview, I started talking about my love of sport. I think that this was given to me from my dad taking me along to football matches from around the age of five. I would be the annoying kid always asking his dad how much longer was left because it was cold, and because non-league football isn’t always exciting to a small child.
I remember one of the first matches I ever went to was Folkestone Town v Kings Lynn. I’m not sure how I remember that fact. It’s not really an important one. I didn’t know where Kings Lynn was until I just Googled it. I mainly remember someone in a seat near to us shouting “Come on you whites!” and every time I would try to shout “Oranges” over the word whites. I was quite a confrontational 5-year old. I am less confrontational these days, except when I play board games. My dad probably used stronger confrontational language, although I’m sure he moderated it when I was younger. As I grew older, he probably moderated it less; as I grew older, my language probably became closer to his.
My dad is sort of a local celebrity. One of the things most people know about him is that he has a football chant for him. If there is ever anything for me to aspire to, it’s that. In fact, I should probably add that to my bucket list now. Ok, that's done.
My dad became a local celebrity largely through the fact that he was a sports writer/editor on our local newspaper. As you can tell from the fact that I am currently writing a blog, I enjoy writing too. My dad had a column called Touchliner in which he would write about whatever is on his mind. He would literally write what was on his mind, before he'd put it through any sort of sense filter. I'm not sure that anyone aside from him ever understood the entirety of any column he wrote.
Not all of our interests overlap. I love cooking but my dad’s speciality is a microwave meal. However, I still remember asking him to make me toast when I was ill, as he would always cover it with more layers of Dairylea (my toast topping of choice, still do this day) than had any right to be able to fit on a piece of bread.
My dad was always very patient and always willing to help me out even at my moments of greatest stupidity. There was the time when I phoned him around 9am and he left work to drive me to university because I had missed a bus as I hadn’t bothered to read the timetable and I'd attempted to catch a bus that didn't exist. In hindsight, I was clearly doing university wrong as any other student would have taken that as a sign to go straight back to bed.
A few months later, after I had passed my driving test, I had driven up to uni but had accidentally left my lights on all day. When I came out of my last lecture around 7pm to find the battery dead and I called my dad who very kindly drove up to Canterbury to rescue myself and a friend from the Poltergeist of Park Wood.* He also brought a toolkit so that I could remove the battery, take it home to charge and replace it the next day.
These were just two times when he saved my metaphorical bacon within the space of one year. There are countless other times he has helped me out, although most of the other involve fewer examples of my own stupidity and so the stories aren’t as interesting.
There are also lots of great stories about my father doing things which one might class as stupid, too. One favourite story of my sister’s is how he tried to use the phone as a remote control for the TV when he came home drunk one evening. Who hasn’t tried to do something like that after a tipple or two, though? I won't mention any of the numerous times he's managed to fall over.
My personal favourite story is when myself and Jo were out for lunch with my parents and I was talking about DIY that we were doing. I asked my dad if he had a jigsaw, as I wanted to borrow one. He thought for a moment before replying that he didn’t think so as, whilst he enjoys puzzles, the problem with them is that they take up a lot of space. This misunderstanding is the reason that I have been buying him jigsaws as presents ever since.
My dad has always been there for me when I need help and advice. One of the best pieces of advice he gave me (which admittedly I have ignored on several occasions) is to always stop drinking when you think you won’t remember it the next day. As I get older, this is a piece of advice I have started to heed more often.
* Note: for any UKC students, this is something I just made up and is nothing to fear.
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