It isn’t every day that you get woken by your nearly 80-year-old father tearfully singing ‘Sunrise Sunset’ from ‘Fiddler on the Roof’.
And whilst it was a bit unexpected, and his singing was rather wobbly, it also felt so poignant.
After all, it isn’t every day you reach the milestone of your half century birthday, and I knew what he was trying to convey.
It doesn’t feel that long ago that he was making spring onion puppets (their roots make great hair) to poke over the bedroom door to tell my sister and I bedtime stories; or making colossal rainbow-coloured breads with us in the kitchen; or showing off his “Superdaddy moves”. On one occasion memorably jumping so high inside his new caravan that he was momentarily suspended in the ceiling by his head (latterly wonkily covered by a fire alarm and the warning given, “Don’t tell your mother!”).
Whilst I would never claim that I had the most conventional of childhoods, one thing I never doubted was the deep love from my parents.
The importance they placed on family and fun, and their mission to make the world a kinder, fairer place in all that they did, inspires me both personally and professionally. In so many ways, I am just continuing their work.
