Anyone who tells you fatherhood is the greatest thing that can happen to you, they are understating it.
Mike Myers
My eldest son, Mark came to stay with me for a few days this past week. It was the first time we'd had a few days alone together in the northeast since my mother's death some fifteen years ago. Then, the main activity was sorting out items he might like as memories of a grandmother with whom he got along very well. This visit was a happier occasion.
As I waited for him in Newcastle's central railway station, my mind drifted back to a December evening just before Christmas in 1974. On that occasion, it was I who travelled from London by train, having left the northeast to work and live in the 'Smoke' some five months before. And it was my father who waited on the station concourse to meet me. Another father meeting another son in the circle of life, although the greetings differed. In 1974, my father and I exchanged a handshake - Mark and I enjoyed a hug. The other difference was just as I met my father, a passing pigeon also offered me a welcome back by pooping on my dad's shoulder, and he was not best pleased. Such an event is supposed to be a sign of good luck, but it wouldn't have turned out that way for the pigeon if my father had gotten hold of it! Fortunately for me, there were no passing pigeons as I met Mark.
I also carried momentous news, on that first return, of my engagement to Kym, who was to become my first wife. I wanted to tell my parents face to face, so I did not share the news in the weekly exchange of letters between my parents (they did not have a telephone) and me. I had, of course, mentioned Kym in my letters, so on hearing the news, my father was not overly surprised as he'd surmised that Kym and I were close. However, the news took my mother entirely by surprise and the prolonged "eeeeeeee" she uttered still lives in my memory.
You often hear a repetition of the letter 'e' in the northeast of England as someone's surprised reaction to an event or news. The "eeeee..." duration is directly proportional to the depth of surprise, and some people sometimes follow it with "never" (or "nivva" to give it the Geordie pronunciation). As I recall, my mother's reaction was a very, very long "eeeeeeee...." To her, I had left home as a boy barely a month after finishing my A-levels, and here I was, returning less than six months later on the verge of marriage. When it comes to affairs of the heart, I've always dived in.
But let's get back to Mark's visit, which was for his belated 40th birthday present from me. A tour of St James' Park, Newcastle United's home ground (on which I took the photograph) and then an 'Evening with Keegan, Waddle and Beardsley'. For those not aware, Kevin Keegan is both an ex-player and then manager of NUFC (and of England, for that matter), and Chris Waddle and Peter Beardsley are ex-NUFC and England players. Their 'era' was primarily the 1970s through to the 1990s.
There is much admiration for 'King' Kevin in Newcastle. Although not born in the area, he is half a Geordie on his father's side and indeed, Kevin's grandfather was a coal miner. Despite Kevin making his career primarily for Liverpool (for whom he scored two goals against NUFC in the 1974 FA Cup final in their loss to Liverpool - I still feel the pain of being there) and Hamburg, the people of Newcastle took him to their hearts when he dropped down to a lower division to play for what was at the time a drifting football club. He, Waddle and Beardsley did much to turn around NUFC's ailing fortunes and help their promotion back to what was then England's First Division. Retiring from playing, Keegan then returned to manage the club and create what became known as the 'Entertainers' team. Waddle and Beardsley are born and bred Northeasterners.
You will have guessed by now that Mark followed his dear old dad in supporting NUFC. There was no pressure from me for him to do so. As with all my children, I tried to set a framework for encouraging development in their early years, and as they gained more experience in life, let them find their way and make their choices. Some of those I may have worried over, but it's their life, not mine, and I and their mothers were (and still are) there as a safety net as needed. Sometimes that's emotional support, sometimes financial, but always without judgement or an "I told you so". You instruct, guide, encourage, and caution in a child's earlier years. But there comes a time when a wise parent drops the instruction element.
Sometimes, the support a parent offers is the simplest of things. An example was one time with Mark in his late teenage years. He'd been in Manchester visiting his girlfriend, Millie, and sadly, she felt it wasn't working. Millie had let him down gently, and I'd spoken to them both to ensure they were OK. Mark travelled home in a fair amount of emotional pain. When meeting him at our local railway station, my gesture, along with a hug, was to have his favourite chocolate bar in hand. Chocolate can't mend a bruised heart, but it was a small gesture to show I cared, and it helped him forget about the vagaries of love for a few minutes.
Mark and I have always got along well; the explosion of my happy excitement when I saw him come into the world is a lifelong memory. Throughout his forty years, we've been close. We share a similar sense of humour (much to the exasperation of our respective partners at times). I don't believe I have a particularly 'strange' sense of humour. If I say I much enjoy Monty Python, it will help place it. However, my sense of humour did lose me, as a young teenager, a girlfriend, Barbara, whom I was very fond of at the time. Barbara's words, "I'm sorry, this isn't going to work as I just don't get your sense of humour", after I had taken her to the cinema to see Monty Python's 'And Now for Something Completely Different’, still echo down the decades. It was probably a good decision on Barbara's part, given the saying 'couples who laugh together, stay together'. However, in my personal experience, it is not totally correct. Still, maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule. After me, Barbara went on to date my best friend, and they are still married some fifty years later.
Mark and I even managed to avoid the conflicts many families experience during their children's teenage years, especially between fathers and sons. I would love to put that down to excellent parenting on my part. In truth, I suspect it was just luck. But whatever it was and still is, we continue to get on as good friends and not just father and son. While we may share a similar sense of humour and the same generally liberal outlook on life, we are also quite different. I'm a planner, while Mark roughs out an outline. He is a talented artist; I can draw a conclusion and paint myself into a corner. I can always find something about which to worry. He takes a more optimistic view of life. I chose a corporate route through my working life, while he has always been self-employed. But those differences help bind us just as much as our shared personality traits. I admire his and his wife, Leanne's parenting skills too. My grandchildren appear to flourish under their parent's guiding and encouraging hand.
The behind-the-scenes tour of what many in Newcastle call the 'cathedral on the hill' was enlightening. What struck me the most is that despite the superstar status of professional football players, a changing room is still only a changing room at any level of the game. Those in St James' Park were more elegant than those I frequented when I played football at a much lower level. But the 'feel' was the same. And these rooms will have seen the same nervousness, excited anticipation and hope of success of any changing room where I've donned my kit, laced up my boots and then ran onto a football field.
A poignant moment came on the tour when we visited the area reserved for NUFC's club directors, and our guide pointed out two special seats reserved permanently for family members of the late and great Sir Bobby Robson. Born a Geordie and a beloved manager of NUFC who, before he managed the club, also won acclaim for managing England, Fulham, Ipswich, Eindhoven, Sporting, Porto, Barcelona and Eindhoven. But more than being a great football manager, he was a gentle man whose humility shone through to anyone who met him. After he retired from football management, Sir Bobby and his wife Elsie occupied the two seats in question. Since Sir Bobby's death and if his family members can't attend a game, the club leaves the seats unoccupied in honour and respect for his memory. I felt it was a gentle gesture by NUFC.
Mark and I much enjoyed listening to Keegan, Beardsley, and Waddle later in the evening as they shared anecdotes and banter about their playing days some forty years ago. I'd often watched them on the playing field, and they were all skilful and entertaining players. They've transferred those skills to a stage. And their stories weren't just about football. Kevin Keegan shared that his mining grandfather, whom I mentioned earlier, also saved many miners after an explosion underground in a northeast England pit that saw 129 miners die. Frank Keegan not only saved men but pit ponies, too. People may see Kevin as a star of the game of football, but as he recounted that story, he simply became an immensely proud grandson with whom many in the audience with similar heritage identified.
So tired but happy after our football-oriented day, Mark and I caught the last train home. We were still up and in good order to spend the next day on a history tour around Newcastle where, in truly fatherly style, I regaled Mark with tales of Newcastle's past, from the Romans, the witch trials, the imprisonment of King Charles I to the more recent civil rights reformers and the local acclaim given to the likes of Frederick Douglass, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Martin Luther King. For those who might wish to know more of that history then, many of my ‘Meanders’ over the past year cover the topics of my tour.
Of course, we imbibed at one or two historical hostelries along the way. ‘The Crown Posada’ was built in 1880 and boasts two Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood-style stained glass windows thought to be by Edward Burne-Jones. The somewhat older and aptly named ‘Old George’ was built in 1582 and within which King Charles I supposedly enjoyed an ale. And given the football theme of the visit, in the ‘The Strawberry’ that sits a stone's throw from St James’ Park, with its walls adorned with drawings, paintings and photographs of the ground and the players from the past 130 years.
However, it was in the more modern ‘Shearer’s Bar’ underneath St James’ wherein Mark and I continued our long-running pool tournament that began when Mark was a young teenager. He took to the game long before that and could barely see over the table the first time he picked up a cue. It was on a family holiday on the Isle of Arran as we took shelter from a storm in a pub. I usually ran out of the victor in the earlier days of our playing, but not so much these days. We, of course, took the opportunity to play a few frames on this visit, and as we played, we both mused how many hundreds of frames we might have played against each other over the past twenty-five years. I am pleased to report that on this rare occasion, I ran out the victor.
Overall, it was for me a wonderful few days in Mark's company. My little house seems smaller, emptier and quieter now I've bade him farewell.
As I read this, the Cat Stevens AKA Yusuf Islam song " Father & Son " went through my mind. & maybe " The Living Years " by a group in the States. It amazes me how a single thing can get memories flowing.
I'm glad you & your son had such an enjoyable time.
A lovely piece, Harry. The greatest gift you can give your children is their independence.
'Geordie' - I thought this meant people from Newcastle only? My dad was adamant that Bobby Robson wasn't a Geordie; he was born in Sacriston, and grew up in Langley Park where he worked for my grandfather as a paper boy.