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What can I give my father for his 70th birthday? It's a question I've been pondering for a while, but without much success.
After all, 70 is a bit of a milestone and means he's been around for quite some time. Which as far as I'm concerned, is lots of years of being my dad, and doing it very well indeed.
Socks, belts or ties clearly won't do. I suspect that, over the years, he's probably received enough of these to stretch all the way to somewhere very distant. Or perhaps not quite that far, but you get my meaning: something very special is required.
Which reminds me of a time when my sister and I were still quite small.
All his working life my father was a journalist - a good one - and used to have to go abroad quite often when we were kids. At least, that's the way it seemed to us then.
After one trip to the Far East he came back laden with the most exotic gifts I'd ever seen.
I distinctly recall the tantalizing scent of spices that clung to the boxes he dug from his suitcase. Jade jewelery and a seemingly endless Chinese dinner service for my mother; a beautiful porcelain doll sporting tiny, hand-sewn clothes and exquisitely braided hair for my sister; and for me, my first ever fountain pen, a grown-up, blood-red beauty with a devastatingly real gold nib. Needless to say, for some time I was slightly afraid of using it.
Did I mention that my dad was - is - an unselfishly generous man? He ended up with a 7 inch single named 'Chairman Mao Is Together With Us', which proves my point entirely.
Perhaps from that moment on my sister and I believed he'd always come home with something, because I remember how, as little kids, we refused to fall asleep until he arrived back from work. We were probably bundled into bed at 6pm or so in those days, and I doubt he turned up until at least half an hour later.
But hearing the front door open, my sister and I would shriek continually until he trudged upstairs to kiss us goodnight. I don't think we even gave him the chance to take off his jacket.
All those late evening returns and early morning departures. An endless ritual that always seemed one of those things dads simply do. Very occasionally we were taken to his office and, surrounded by the smell of fresh newsprint, were allowed to play with typewriters, rummage through drawers and perhaps reach the conclusion that working life must actually be quite good fun.
It's only much later, of course, that you're able to appreciate the reality of working weeks without end; the pressures and anxieties and sacrifices involved. I never once heard him complain.
Knowing this now, it's little wonder that another recollection I have of my dad is how he loved dozing in the sun on a hot weekend.
He rarely got much time to do this - there were shelves to (try to) build and gardens to dig and shopping trips to make and the vagaries of English weather to contend with - but duties over, if the sun was blazing, he'd lie on a sun-bed with a radio tinkling beside him and eventually fall asleep. A small pleasure which, of course, he'd earned many times over.
All the little things that go into making fathers, fathers. The moments recalled as, contemplating the merits of book tokens, slippers, bottles of port - in short, all the things that just won't do - I pluck memories from the drift of years as dad approaches his 70th birthday. And still I need to find him the right gift; a thank you and a celebration rolled into one.
If I had the ability to make life do wondrous things, I'd conjure him a venerable, leather-bound chair in just the right place beside a snapping fire. There'd be two snuffling puppies to drape across his feet and a green and blue parrot astride his shoulder, nibbling at his beard.
Billy Bunter, William and Ginger would invite him round for tea, and later that evening Frank, Dean and Sammy would drop by to croon him a Happy Birthday, graciously accept a glass or three of bourbon, then warmly shake his hand before heading back to Vegas.
I'd let him read all his favourite stories as if he'd never read them before.
But life isn't made that way, and in the absence of things I wish I could give, I can only hope this might do instead.
Words that are written just for him. Words that want to be many different things, but end up saying: "thanks, Dad"; and "how time flies! And here's wishing you lots and lots of love on your big, 70th Birthday."
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