Chips was a fictional school master in the novella Goodbye, Mr. Chips, who devoted his life to the boys in his charge. He worked at the school as a housemaster and classics teacher and generations of old boys at the school revered him – he was remembered with affection by all of his boys. Chips personified what a housemaster of the old school should be: kind, fair, straight talking, slow to anger, quick to forgive and always with your best interests at heart. And our old housemaster, Guy, was all of these.

Whenever I think of Guy, it is either leading evening Prayers and giving out house colours in the table tennis room in our house, Manor, or on the touchline dressed in his Cambridge blue scarf or blazer. And of his smile, which he wore so often. I have always been incredibly grateful to him. He showed us an example of decency, good humour and quiet authority. A thunderous look from him spoke volumes and we never wanted to incur his displeasure, mainly because you knew that of you did, you had disappointed him and so let yourself down in some way.

I was reminded of this when my friend, Neil, with whom I shared a dormitory in the IVth form (14/15), asked if I remembered a wall punching competition between us one night after lights out. I did. We took it in turns to hit the wall opposite our beds as hard as we could with our fists. The idea being, either one of us would punch through the wall or break our knuckles trying. I stepped up. I threw my punch and, my guardian angel taking charge, hit straight through a weak point where the wall had just been plastered over. A false wall. Guy, doing his duty rounds, heard the noise, came in, turned on the light, saw us standing there looking guilty, looked at the hole in the wall and the shards of plaster strewn on the floor and simply asked “Why?”. He put out the light and left. We had no answer and went to bed, shamed.

Guy also knew when to look the other way. One evening, when everyone had gone over to tea in main school, I snuck into a bathroom with my then girlfriend. Carried away with passion, we had forgotten that this bathroom was directly above Guy’s study. He must have been working downstairs and heard us. In a heart stopping moment, we could hear him ascending his private staircase, come through the fire door and along the corridor to the bathroom door. We had locked the door but lay, entwined and terrified. We held our breath. Guy just stood outside the door for a moment, his face against the door. We could hear him breathing. Then went away. He didn’t even try the door handle. That is all he had to do. As his footsteps retreated back to his study, we let out our breath, reassembled ourselves quickly and quietly snuck out of the bathroom. We never did that again. Guy could have rumbled us and made a big deal of it. We would probably have been expelled and he knew that. So he just made his presence felt. Message received and understood.

Guy was old school, in all the right ways. Gentlemanly, interested in everyone, dedicated and both academic and sporty – the public school ideal. I remember being very impressed that he had a Cambridge Blue. And that he had gone to King’s College. And that he played cricket for Lancashire. And football for England. And – most confusing of all – was magic at mathematics. A word of encouragement from him meant the world and you wanted to do your best for him. Because he always did his best for you, and you knew that he did. When Guy retired from being a housemaster in 1981, his replacement had very big shoes to fill. Which he didn’t. He couldn’t have.

In Manor, we were incredibly fortunate for the four years we had Guy in charge. The environment he and Tan, his wife, created was safe. You could be yourself and not be scared. Not true in other boarding houses at the time. Manor was fun, lively and happy. And that was entirely down to the environment the two of them created. I will always be grateful to Guy and the nurture he provided. We called him “Boooky” in homage to his Lancastrian vowels – we were a Yorkshire school, after all. But he was, and always will be, our very own Mr. Chips.

All my children have been brought up with the myths of the Ancient World and they have known the names of the Greek Heroes and the Gods from Mount Olympus from a very early age. But my eldest son took them to heart. His favourite family quiz question to set is to name the twelve labours of Hercules. One of his favourite films to watch is Harryhausen’s classic Jason and the Argonauts. Another is the more recent ‘300’ – the bloody, hyper-reality biopic about Leonidas and the 300 Spartans who blocked the pass at Thermopylae and died heroically, delaying Xerxes’ progress into mainland Greece to buy time for the City States to rally an army. So when, one summer, I suggested a tour around the ancient sites of the Peloponnese, he leapt at the chance. It was our very own pilgrimage back to the stories of his childhood.

An hour from the airport, we pulled up to have a drink overlooking the Corinith canal. We travelled on to our hotel – the bedroom window overlooked a compound where, it seemed, all of the stray dogs in the town of Tripoli, congregated to sleep. This was a no frills adventure. The focus was on the history. We slept, ready for our immersion into 3500 years of time travel the following morning.

Our guide, Dimitris, was a curious mix of Greek and Alabama in the Southern United States. He had some controversial views about the Confederate flag – the notorious ‘Stars and bars’ emblem of the slave owning States was being removed in all the Southern State flags back then, due to its racist connotations. Dimitris felt this was historical revisionism and a denial of history. We, and our fellow travellers, a retired middle aged couple, he with bladder issues, she mouselike and meek, went silent. Dimitiris was on his own with this view, but, being Brits, after Dimitris’ rebuttal of a tentatively phrased “do you not feel that maybe some people find its associations a little, er, offensive, possibly a bit strong?” we kept our own counsel. We didn’t want to piss off our guide on Day One. Plus, this was a tour of places which would also not bear scrutiny under modern day morality.

We hit the outskirts of Sparta. Sam and I were smiling. A dream come true. We asked to stop the minibus so he and I could have our photo taken standing by the plinth depicting the legendary city name. The man with bladder issues disappeared into a local shop to attend to his needs. Hopefully not on the floor. We re-bussed and progressed to the theatre of the ancient town, which, like everything around us, was reduced to the dark stone rubble of ruins. Big, rectangular black stones littered the ground and, in some places, raised one atop the others for maybe three or four blocks to shape an arc of seats where, we were assured, the nobles and notables would have sat. Even though it was a heap of stones lying amongst the tall wild grass, in this blistering midday heat you could hear and feel the ancient warrior culture seeping out of every corner. We marvelled. And then, piece de resistance, we stood at the feet of the King who is Sparta’s most famous and bravest son: Leonidas. Towering above us, a bronze statue of the man who understood the meaning of ‘come back with your shield, or on it’. A man who went to certain death and took 300 of his kinsmen with him in defiance of the ephores – elders – to delay the mightiest army in the world. Sam re-enacted Leonidas kicking the Persian envoy down the bottomless well, having come to ask Sparta to bend the knee to Xerxes with an offering of earth and water. (The Athenians were not quite so preemptory – they put the envoys on trial first, then threw them down a hole in the ground to their deaths. Athenians – always more legalistic and due process-like.)

Guess who played the role of the Perisan envoy.

This was a particularly cruel fate given that my dearest wish when I went away to boarding school at the age of 8 – one year after Spartan boys were taken away from home to attend the Agoge – was to be a Spartan, as my two older brothers had been. I was made a Corinthian. (The school was divided into ancient Greek city states, called ‘houses’.) Twice denied. Although a Corinthian was probably more suited to my personality given it was a trading city rather than a military one. Maybe the great Sorting Hat of the School could tell my future, who knows.

From Sparta to Mycenae and to Agamemnon’s tomb. Each time we stopped, Bladder Man immediately headed for the nearest convenience. It became a ritual. From there to wonderful Epidaurus, the ancient site of the biggest and most complete theatre in the ancient world and where the practice of medicine began. Asclepius, God of Medicine, and the now international symbol of medicine, the snake, lived here. Maybe our friend with the weak bladder could see someone here? Maybe a kindly snake would bite him and cure his wonky waterworks?

Sam and I take turns to stand in the centre of the stage and speak, gently whilst the other climbs to the very top and back row of seats in the semi circular stalls. You can hear every word as if they were being spoken directly into your ear. And we clap over the stone circle to hear the magnificent echo that reverberates around the theatre and surrounding cypress trees. I was last here in 1976 on an educational cruise on the SS Uganda. The next time I return to this magically wonderful place, I would like it to be to attend a concert or a play – which they still put on every summer. Yes, I would like that to be my final trip to Epidaurus.

Back at the hotel and we learn how to make spinach pie – a recipe we try out on our family at Thorpeness the following year as an homage to the trip we are both loving so much. The conversation is of history and ancient times and we both ply Dimitris with questions in the minibus on our travels between sites and over beers and wine. He takes us to a wine maker where I develop a fondness for the family and the woman who offers us her different wines for tasting. It is her ancestral winery and the wines are good. We travel on to a cave complex which is as cold as it is mysterious and which is home to white, silken thin spiders which prey here in the dark waiting patiently for anything which wanders by and might make a meal. It is a ghostly place and they clearly wait many moons for a meal – which is why they are so thin and translucent. We stop for lunch at a tavern where our chair and table legs are literally lapped by the sea. The prawns are pink and the fish eaten head and all. It is a feast and enjoyed after a hard day’s travails.

We stop in mountain villages and take that black, strong Greek coffee as the Greek airforce, now surely bankrupt (this is the middle of the Euro crisis as Greece is bailed out with one loan after another by the EU, but which is really Germany) serenades us with not one, or two or three overhead passes, but four. The Starfighters, a pair, silver and ear splittingly loud, scream over the village and head down the gorge in a low level pass that enables us to see the pilots in their perspex domed cockpits. They are having fun. We – and all the villagers – are enjoying them having fun and the free air display.

The tour progresses. A trek through the gorge to see a monastery carved out of the precipice, where we drink cooling mountain water from a fish-shaped brass tap in the wall.

We pass wild horses in the canyon and take a picnic by an ancient stone bridge. Sam swings on a rope suspended from a tree across the river from the little stone beach where we eat and drops, with a splash, into the icy clear green-tinged water. I join him to cool off from the heat of the trek.

We visit Byzantine ruins with the ornate and still vivid wall paintings of icons and saints and we go to a place where, in the war of independence between 1821 and 1830, they manufactured gunpowder to fuel the struggle against the Ottoman Empire. It is a lovely mix of ancient and modern and an education in the history and culture of the Greek nation.

Later on in the evening of that day, Sam and I stroll through Triploi to the town square where, it seems, the children of the entire vicinity are at play. It is 10 o’clock at night. This is Mediterranean culture and children are not merely adults in waiting, as they are in the Protestant countries. They are children and they dart from playground to table as their elders sit and drink and dine and talk. It is the fabric of a nation which has seen it all before – disaster and triumph – and knows that life goes on. We wander to a restaurant and meet Dimitris’ wife and children. They are so welcoming but we leave them to their time together – we take her husband away from her enough without imposing on their family time, too.

To Delphi and the Oracle. High up the mountainside, here is this fabled place. A place where so many famous figures have sought their fate and guidance. We walk up past the little temple where the Delphic Oracle dispensed her sagacity and saw into the future, however obliquely and with whatever consequence. Up and on we go to the top, up the shining rocks of the Phaidriades to where the hippodrome lies. The view is across the plain to the Gulf of Corinth and it shimmers in the heat. You can imagine the ancient hotels bustling with tourists and seekers after help as they disgorge from the caravans that have now been replaced with coaches and cars. It is Disneyland for Rome and a place of prayer for Greeks.

On we go. To Olympia, site of the ancient Olympic Games and the place where, every four years, the Olmpic flame is lit from the sun and carried on torches from this place of origin to the venue for the modern games, wherever in the world that might be. Here we are met by the irrepressible guide, Mario. Mario is a musical orator, so full of life and knowledge that we soak up his stories with relish. He is a character. Ebullient, extravagant with gesture, he carries his learned guidebooks and official passes and maps under his arms as he unveils the stories of this magnificent place.

Only 12 people were ever convicted of cheating in the ancient games, and their names live on in notoriety, he says. He shows us the plinths on which the heroes of old, the athletes who competed for honours, would have stood, triumphant in their immortal victory. They are all gone now. I ask Sam if he would like to stand on one and strike a pose for the camera, but he declines – it would, he feels, signify a lack of respect for the athletes who competed here for glory. It is a nice historical sensibility. We stand under the gate where the athletes entered the arena. You can feel our excitement. Sam is beaming. This, for a sportsman, is it. It. This is where it all began. We walk in. Sam turns around in a circle to savour the atmosphere. It is palpable. Mario enjoys our enjoyment. He asks if Sam would like to run up the track and points to the lines of stones in the sandy gritty surface which signal the start line for all the races. Sam hunkers down in the starting position. On your marks, get set..go! He’s off, running – well, jogging – down the track to the end. On his return he asks if I want to have a run. “My joy is seeing your joy”, I reply. And it is. It truly is. To see his animation at being in this place is one of those moments only a parent can understand.

We round off our time in the stadium with a Usain Bolt style salute of the victor, both of us on the podium used by the Greats of Old when they received their crown of olive leaves in recognition of victory. No historical sensibility here – it is too good an opportunity to be true. Our triumphalism done, Mario escorted us to the Mayor’s cafe where I buy a bronze warrior head in Spartan helmet as a commemoration of the trip for Sam’s Sacred shelf of Remembrance – the shrine of memorabilia that Sam has collected over the years. A sort of Aladdin’s Cave of Historical G(r)eekism.

Athens beckons as the final leg of our whistle stop tour. We travel there with an overnight stop at the Ganimede hotel the town of Galaxidi. The B&B is welcoming and quaint. Old school – doilies, dark, heavy sideboards and robust beds with simple, pretty bedspreads. The owner is a Greek woman in her late thirties. In the evening we wander through the village to the quayside and have a swim from the jetty as the townsfolk sip their coffee or wine and look on. It is clear water and cooling from the day’s travel. A lovely, peaceful oasis. We join Dimitris and the weak-bladdered man and his wife for dinner. The hum of the village on the harbour side. Life is at ease this evening.

Athens. We are on the roof terrace of our hotel and the view is one of the most famous views in all of history – the Parthenon atop the Acropolis, floodlit in an orange glow as the dark night sky provides a backdrop. Normally, the canopy of stars in a night sky would eclipse any Earthly view. Not so tonight. This ancient and magnificent Metropolis lies beneath Athena’s temple, waiting for us. We are here. We finish our drinks and walk in to the heat of the night and the noisy, crowded streets and arcades. A restaurant beckons and we have our final dinner of this very Greek adventure. I am reminded of Dimitris’ ridiculing of the Turks’ naming of what is modern day Istanbul. “They called it Constantinopolis – polis is the Greek word for ‘city’. So they called their main city, “city”. ” He laughs and raises his eye brows as if this is self-evidently stupid. As ever in this tale of perpetual enmity between the two nations, this is only half true. The city of Constantine is a perfectly legitimate title for a great city founded by an Emperor. We let Dimitris have his victory. There are 400 years of suffering behind it, so it is a legitimate snipe. And we are in his homeland, so we are partisan tonight.

The female academic is serious but has a light touch. She is very Greek. We are in the Acropolis Museum at the foot of our intended target. We are shown the different stages of the Greek statuary – the Geometric, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic. We see the remains of a statue of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, his breastplate a dead giveaway of his allegiances: Romulus and Remus suckling at the Capitoline Wolf underneath the full length image of the goddess Athena. Athens over and above Rome – a very significant message: Hadrian was a big fan of this City. As we progress around the museum Sam and I keep glancing, longingly, out of the panoramic windows up at the Parthenon. And at our watches. We have a deadline. Eventually I say something. “We love this and it is all fascinating but we are worried we will run out of time to visit the actual star of the show. We have to get up there and look around and that is where we would like to be now, please.” A half smile of amusement played across her mouth. “So Anglo-Saxon. What is the rush?” “We have a plane to catch.” “It will wait. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. What’s the rush. ” She carried on with her tour of the artefacts. “No. Really, we want to go up there to the Parthenon now. Please.” She stopped. The half smile. “Ok.” Her body said “Philistines”. Her lips said:”Rush, rush. The plane will wait.” Er. No it won’t. Cue muttered remarks between us Brits about how this approach might explain the current mess of the Greek economy. It was a sour note. But it was also a little glimpse into two totally contrasting ways of living. My feeling is that Spartans and ancient Athenians were also in a hurry. But there is also a lot to be said for laissez-faire fatalism. She was laconic, elegant and unhurried. The experience was to be savoured and here we were, we Anglo-Saxons, devouring it without relish. The tortoise and the hare.

We hares half walked, half ran up to the summit. There it was – right up close. Beautiful. Awe inspiring. Vast. We breathed it in and revelled in the sight. This was the climax of our trip – to be here, in front of this building. This building which has not only borne witness to the history of the Western World, but is that history, incarnate. I replaced a splinter of marble that I had appropriated on my 1976 visit as a boy, which I had packed especially for this moment. If the British Museum won’t return the fabled Elgin Marbles, the least I can do is give back my booty from three and a half decades ago. The piece goes back on the ground. In reality, it is probably just a fragment of paving stone, a chip of building material, but it feels like a homecoming. The flag of the modern greek state flies in a beautiful flutter of blue and white at the far end of the Acropolis. It is a place of significance, for here, the Evzones soldier, Koukidis, made his last stand against the Nazis on 27 April 1941.

Guarding the Greek flag, he was commanded by the German officer to lower it and run up the Swastika of the occupying army. Koukidis lowered the Greek flag, wrapped it around his body, leapt over the wall and fell down the mountainside to his death rather than surrender it to the fascists. Here was our modern day Leonidas. The heroism of the Ancients clearly lives on to this day.

The sojourn in this loved land was done. The stories of Sam’s youth had come alive in him and me and it was a journey of and to treasure. We returned home and delivered our bottle of tsipouro to Georgios at the Archipelago restaurant. He reminisced about his school years friend and we stayed for lunch. Whenever I feel in need of sunshine or stories, whenever my world needs a lift, I head for the taverna, for kleftiko, spanakopita, fried feta or souvlaki. And a bottle of Dogmatikos. Greece is where it all began. And I hope it is where it all ends. Some places are magical, especially in the company of a son who loves those places with a shared fervour. Yamas.

Clearly, this enthusiasm for Association Football needed an outlet. So four months later I am dropped at a boys’ preparatory boarding school for my first term – most of which will be spent outside on the wind lashed playing fields. This, it is felt, will fix my football fixation. The centre piece of my obsession is my Soccer Stars album, which I keep in a grey cardboard box in my tuck box. The grey cardboard box is my most secret place – where all the most precious things (a small Paddington Bear, a yellow and aquamarine felt pen case made by my mum, two Cadbury’s Aztec bars) in my world are kept. But the Crown Jewel was my complete page of the entire team of Leeds United stuck into my album. Every break, I went to the cardboard box, opened my Soccer Stars album and inhaled.

The glue you used to stick each player card into the album, well, you can’t get it now. It was probably banned because it was magical and addictive. In my 8 year old nostrils it smelt the same way as napalm did to Colonel Kilgore, the air cav commander played by Robert Duval in the film ‘Apocalypse Now’. It smelled of victory. Leeds’ glorious victory in that Wembley final. Sniffing glue at break time was recompense for being ripped from the family bosom and sent to Yorkshire’s juvenile Colditz. You have to grab comfort somewhere. The cold cure of Aysgarth school worked. A combination of damp scratchy, hooped woollen soccer jerseys and navy blue, knee length coarse woollen shorts four times a week put paid to my football addiction and turned my attention to bullying, fagging, being beaten and escape to fantasy as alternative recreations. Football died for me for nearly half a century.

Last weekend my son took me to the pub up the road to watch Leeds United’s debut back in the Premier League against Liverpool. It was 3-4 to Liverpool but Leeds came back from behind three times and gave notice (as they say in footballing circles) to the other teams that there was a dangerous old player back in town. An inventive, fearless, quick, fit, opportunistic player (with a lousy defence). It was lovely to savour the feeling of having white jerseys back on a first class pitch playing first class opposition. When I was young and we listened to the football results being read out on the radio, it was always Liverpool that did for Leeds – then in their pomp under the captaincy of Billy Bremner. It was always: “Leeds United 1…Liverpool (after what seemed an age),2.”All other teams fell to the Mighty Whites. But rarely, very rarely, did the reds from Anfield. These memories go deep and this match awakened them.

My son would not describe me as a die hard Leeds fan. In fact, I have pretty much gone to the same jaundiced perspective as my father (who also went to a harsh northern boarding school in Scarborough). But with one crucial difference. My dad never took me to a game. To my son’s regret, I did take him a few times. Josh was born at a hospital within spitting distance of Stamford Bridge. This makes him an avid Chelsea fan. I prevailed on various kind-hearted friends – not that kind hearted, it turns out, as I always had to fork out for the privilege – to proffer their season tickets for the odd game. I think we visited the Chelsea ground together three times. But this was never going to end well.

The first time, Josh was eight. We had tickets at the Matthew Harding end. That is the hardcore end. The end where you can measure the loyalty of the supporters by the number and size of CFC tattoos emblazoned on every inch of exposed flesh multiplied by 10,844 fans. We found our seats. They were rarely used. Everyone was always on their feet and towered over Josh. He had to stand on his seat. There wasn’t any form of verbal communication other than swearing. Before the match, the announcer said over the tannoy that Chelsea FC supported fully the FA’s No Room For Racism In Football programme and screens lit up with the words and logo of that laudable cause. As soon as Arsenal came out, the Togolese player Emmanuel Adebayor was targeted. He was greeted by our neighbours with a stentorian-sized chorus of: “Adebayor, Adebayor, his father washes elephants and ‘is muvver’s an ‘ore”. Choruses of laughter. I am sure that Emmanuel felt protected by the pre-match announcement about zero tolerance for racism at this ground.

The match started. Around us, every time an Arsenal player got the ball, the entire Harding stand army raised their arms to 90 degrees, pointed the index finger at the offending opposition player and chanted in unison: “He’s a cunt, he’s a cunt…”. I looked down at the angelic, smiling face of Josh. His pleading eyes said it all. “It’s your day out, Josh”, I said, resignedly. ” His arm went up, he pointed his finger and… I am a terrible father.

Our next trip to Stamford Bridge was, from Josh’s point of view, a disaster. Not the result, which I cannot even remember. It was my total un-suitedness to the partisanship of football. We were about 10 rows back, four fifths up the length of the pitch. Almost perpendicular to the penalty box at the opposition’s end. A Chelsea attacker went down just in front of the goal – everyone was up on their feet “PENALTY!” I was the only person not on my feet. Audibly, I uttered my verdict: that was never a penalty. Two hundred eyes rounded on me. And on Josh. Heads shook. Contempt filled the air. Sympathetic glances shot in my son’s direction. To have such a, such a dad…beyond help. I felt a flash of recognition. The Fast Show had a character who was a rugger type and caused constant fury around him by agreeing with the ref, shouting ‘good decision!’ and tucking into his wicker food hamper.

That was me, that was. And my son just shook his head in disgust along with the others and wished for the ground to open up and swallow him. This clearly wasn’t like rugby (that’s another thing you learn at cold Yorkshire boarding schools – fair play).

It was a long while before Josh trusted me to go back to Stamford Bridge. Eventually, he did. Well. I say that. It was more a pragmatic turning the other cheek out of the expedient need to go see his beloved team play Inter Milan for a place in the quarter finals of the European Cup. Inter were managed by Chelsea’s old manager, Jose Mourhino. It was a must see game. By then – 2010 – we lived in Penzance. Josh and I set off up to London on the morning of the match. That’s a six hour journey. As the train pulled out, my now teenage son took the earphones out of his ears, leaned over the table towards me and said: ‘Just so you know, pretty much anything you say at the moment annoys me”. With that, he re-plugged his ears and tuned out, staring out of the window for good measure. That was me told.

Chelsea lost. Josh was inconsolable. A day of promise – if silent companionship – had ended in defeat, low mood and vulnerability. We left the ground and headed straight to Paddington station to get the sleeper train all the way back to Cornwall. It leaves at 1050pm. As we pulled out of the station, rattling slowly through the west London suburbs, Josh silently climbed into my bunk and cuddled up, exhausted and hopeless. The bolshie truculence of my son’s nervous morning confidence gave way to the sorrowful fatigue of the bereft. Sometimes, disaster can only be consoled by the familial comfort of a father’s ever-ready arms. However ignorant, embarrassing and annoying he might be.

Clearly, I am a sucker for punishment or else there must be a residual football gene that keeps surfacing because every Sunday, from summer 2006 to the same season in 2013, I turned out to play ‘dads and lads’ with my boys, initially mid-morning on a pitch above the village of Mousehole and in the later years, at the Penzance sports centre. I am terrible at football. Occasionally, I get lucky and my left foot reaches moments of glory that would have the Matthew Harding stand on its feet in triumph. This is rare. Usually, I prowl up and down unthreateningly and as the lads got bigger and bigger, more and more skilled, they left me behind and ran rings around me. In the end, the ritual was more important than the skill. But it was our Sunday best.

Josh taking me to see Leeds’ comeback from the oblivion of the lower divisions the other day woke up my footballing gene again. My first words on entering a pub and greeting a friend will never be ‘see the game last night?’ I will never share that bond of men. I am known by male mates for the sarcasm I employ to ask such a question and the boredom I exhibit when they begin to answer it sincerely. But now that the Mighty Whites are back, well, maybe, just maybe, that eight year old, glue sniffing, Soccer Star sticking boy from the North, who ran around the room when Clarke headed the ball behind Geoff Barnett in the fifty-third minute of that match at Wembley all those years ago, lives on inside me. Hidden from view most of the time, but there, Lazarus-like, waiting to rise up. But my real joy is the joy Josh gets from the game I will always see through the slats of a wicker picnic hamper. And that’s good enough for me.

My son, Josh, and I were on an expedition. We had spent a week in Singapore, staying with Josh’s Godfather in his beautiful ‘Black and White’ ex-colonial home. It is, to my mind, the nicest of only a handful of such historical houses in Alexandra Park, one of the only green spaces left in this highly developed city state. The sheltered enclave where the British Imperial Military officer elite had their homes between the wars. The excuse for the trip was to give Josh some work experience – The Godfather ran an advertising network in Asia and generously held it within his gift to set my son up with a day in each of five different work streams in his group: media, production, account handling, creative and planning. Every night, Josh returned home to tell us that the one he had worked at that day was, definitely, the one for him – the chosen profession he would pursue. In the space of one working week, he had changed jobs five times. Four future career paths were run up only to be unceremoniously abandoned for the new path that had been explored that day, until the last day, when, the final path was revealed. Needless to say, Josh didn’t ever pursue any of those five routes – he’s a teacher now, and loves it. But the point was to whet his appetite and actually experience different workplaces. And it was a wonderful chance for us to be together in some of my favourite places in Asia.

Josh wasn’t prepared for the tropics. The humidity crucified him. As did the jet lag. In his adolescent life, he hadn’t travelled long haul so the double whammy of arriving seven hours adrift from normality into a water-sodden air weighty with oppressive heat, well, he just wiped out on arriving at our hosts in Russell’s Road. As his Godfather and I sat on the open air veranda and ate dinner prepared by his Amah – one of two, live ins – Josh zonked out in his bedroom. It was my fourth or fifth visit to this little Eden, and a glass of cold white in hand with the prospect of a week living like a colonial was a pleasant prospect.

I made Josh turn up for work on day one in a suit. Probably cruel. He didn’t wear one after that; the people said it was fine to be informal. I went on a run and explored Alexandra Park and its environs. Just to salve my business conscience I even made a trip to the British Consul and enquired about the help they provide for companies trying to win business in Singapore. Cocktail parties and introductions was what it all amounted to. Very civilised. In the evenings we went to various favourite haunts – the Marina Bay Sands (the enormous triple-towered complex with the pool on top), a beach restaurant with sandy foreshore and huge oil tankers moored off the coast (Josh had a dip in the South China Sea), and cocktails on Sentosa Island, and the now defunct China Club.

Josh couldn’t get his head around the servant thing. To our guests’ children, having staff to bottle-wash and prepare a snack anytime and, to Josh’s horror, fetch them over the ketchup, was just the natural order of things. An Amah, Siri, lived in a little mini bungalow down the steps and tucked round the back of the main house. She tended to all the domestic stuff and took a ferry one weekend in four over to a little island where her husband brought up their kids.

It is an alien world more akin to Ivory Merchant films than modern day life. I remember my father telling me that when he served in the Royal Navy for the last few years of the War, he entered a club in what was then a part of the British Empire, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and saw the notice on the wall by the entrance at the top of the steps: “No natives”. Plus ca change. The ex-pat lifestyle is circa RN 1947.

Our adventure moved premises. A three hour flight from Singapore across cloud-scudded ocean and tantalising peeks of five volcanoes lies Bali – our destination. We had booked for 5 days with Bali Scuba to do our PADI certificate as open water divers. Three days in class learning theory and practicals in the pool and 4 dives over two days in open water. We broke every rule and went with an unlicensed cab who had all hell’s delight finding the hotel we were due to stay at for 6 nights. Our hearts fell – yes, it did look like it looked on the website, with one crucial difference – a picture of the main road in to Sanur, which is the busiest road you could imagine, seems to have been omitted from either the photo gallery or the description of the facilities. Our room was hot, not sound proof and, well, we were crestfallen. A phone call to the Dive Centre later and they were investigating our immediate re-location to The Godfather’s preferred choice of Balinese venue, the Tanjun Sari hotel in Sanur.

The Tanjun was, well, more in keeping with the fantasy you’d have about being in Bali. Acres of greenery, a shady green pool, beach front, daiquiris. We felt better. Ready for our diving.

There were three of us on the course. Us and a bearded Aussie undergoing a very visible mid-life crisis. One night we went to a night club. Well, a flesh market, really. The Aussie was in hunting mode. He spied a girl at the bar and summoned the waiter. “That lady at the bar,” he instructed, “get her whatever she wants and put this on the tray”. With that, he gave the waiter his business card. The waiter understood. Five minutes later, the woman joined us. Josh and I were invisible from that moment. It was a slightly daunting environment for Josh but an eye opener for sure. We left. No point cramping the Aussie’s style. Not that he even noticed we were still there by then.

He arrived late for class the next morning.

Doing your PADI, you do about 5 dives in all down to, ultimately, a depth of 18 metres. Our qualifying dive took place at a well known dive site, about an hour’s drive by minibus with all the dive equipment from the school. We checked and prepped the tanks and then our instructor took us in. We had to clear our masks underwater and each of us had to set a bearing and demonstrate that we could navigate to and from the given location. We did and we officially passed our PADI. Photos were taken underwater to commemorate the occasion – one of which you can see here. We surfaced and shook hands. Then we returned below the surface to cruise over the deck of the wreck and enjoy the sea life. It was then that our instructor made the cradling gesture. It was an unforgettable moment in a once in a lifetime trip.

Emily spent the first year of her life living in Russia. We went through the excruciating process of getting her a UK passport, eventually resorting to blackmailing the British Embassy in Moscow by telling them we were going to be in Red Square the next morning with a TV crew from Russia Today filming Emily with a placard around her neck saying “I am British but the Queen doesn’t want me”. The Home Office had dragged its feet for weeks and weeks with Emily’s passport application, making us attend interviews, filling in endless forms and being as dilatory as the best Byzantine bureaucrat. We were getting nowhere and Christmas was approaching – we wanted to spend Christmas in the UK. Our PR stunt worked a treat. The Foreign Office, who never interfere in Home Office jurisdiction, interfered in Home Office jurisdiction and within 24 hours of our threat, we went to the Moscow embassy to pick up Emily’s passport.

We travelled to the UK on 17 June 2017, when Tanya and Steven’s UK residency visas came through (another tale of bureaucratic nonsense where we involved the embassy to expedite the result). Our new life began. Emily now grows up in the UK. When my sons were born, I worked for a big advertising firm. I was a corporate warrior. This time, I am my own boss. I have had two decades of experience bringing up children. I am no longer making it all up as I go along. These two factors make a huge difference. Where I always made time to spend with my sons, never missed any stuff at school and loved my weekends and evenings with them, I did not raise them every hour of the day. Their mum did that. I was at work. But this time, with Emily, I work from home. So I am around her all the time. And she is around me all the time. Especially now we are in lock down with the Covid-19 pandemic changing our world. What’s it like second time around? What’s it like being the father of a very young child after having already ‘been there, done that’?

I am more relaxed. Much more relaxed, period. I have no worries about whether she is behind this or underdeveloped in that – you know they get there in the end, as long as there’s nothing seriously awry. That’s all that matters. It’s not a race. It’s not life or death if she can’t ride a bicycle by the age of 18 months or compose a concerto at four. No one in their right mind should be worrying about this nonsense. Enjoy each other. Play. It’s amazing what they soak up. The first time around, I put pressure on my eldest son. He felt the pressure to perform. I remember the day he was waiting for his GCSE results, We were on holiday with my brother’s family in Portugal. Sam was being quite elusive and avoiding calling school for his results. When I enquired why, he said, bitterly, that whatever he got, it wouldn’t be good enough for me. My heart melted. It was such a terrible burden to put on him. I went out and brought some bubbly at the local shop. When I came back, he had his results. He had done brilliantly and we opened the Champagne – which we would have opened whatever. But what he said really gave me pause for thought: what a rotten dad I had been to make him feel that whatever he achieved it would never be good enough. What a classic first child experience – to be the channel for your dad’s frustrated ambitions, a vessel through which to ‘have another go’. I learnt a lot that day in Portugal.

Emily is the beneficiary of the many, many humbling lessons my sons have taught me. I hope I am gentler, less demanding, more able to let my children go and be themselves. I do not monitor or measure and I only care that we bring Emily up to be self reliant, imaginative, clever, eloquent, sociable, funny, serious, athletic, well read, well travelled, humble, considerate, self-confident, pious….oops, there I go again. No, David, no. Nowadays, I prefer to relax. I choose to relax about her progress in life. As long as we give her opportunities to grow and encourage her gently to experiment and play, that’s good enough.

Remembering back to a bright Spring morning watching my two eldest sons playing in the long grass of the ‘secret garden’ – a walled garden that had been left to run wild at the back of the Bishop of Fulham’s Palace in West London – I wondered to myself if it got any better than this. I was happy. Seeing the boys running amongst the tall, still damp, dewy grass stalks, was blissful. With Emily, there are more of these times. Because I have the time. The backdrop isn’t often as spectacular as the Palace garden – in fact, it’s usually on the sofa or just walking down the road to Hove beach – but the experience is there. This is as good as it gets, watching and being part of your child’s make believe world, yet apart from it, observing and, most moving of all, feeling the feelings of being there, having a privileged glimpse of your child’s innocence at play in the world.

There is no pressure to being a parent. If you let go. I see so many of my friends and relations who cannot let go. Their children are a ‘project’. However old their children are, there is always one more financial obligation, one more student loan to be paid off, one more child to ‘put’ through university, one more leg up onto the housing ladder, one more exam “we need to be home to make sure the revision is done”, one more university place to be negotiated, one more move back home before they are ready to fly off into the world. Leave them alone! Their life is not your project. It is their project. As my eldest son packed his rucksack for the Ten Tors Challenge across Dartmoor, aged fifteen, I asked him if he had remembered his toothbrush and his trangia: “Dad, let me make my own mistakes”, he wisely replied. Ever since that day, I have.

Let them make their own mistakes. You cannot protect them from the world for ever. If you constantly shield them from life they will grow up, guess what, unable to look after themselves. I do not want to infantilise my children. I want to let them grow up. It is the hardest thing because every instinct inside you screams to protect. But by not protecting them, you let them grow. And it is your job to help them to grow. I have learnt this. It has taken me three children to learn, but it is learnt none the less. Lucky Emily.

We lived in Penzance between 2006 and 2013. Every summer, I tried to drag my two sons to the annual airshow at RNAS Culdrose, near Helston on the Lizard. It was a hopeless endeavour. They never shared my Baby Boomer generation’s veneration for military aircraft: the Spitfire, Hurricane, the P-51 Mustang, the ME109, the B-17 USAF Flying Fortress, the Lancaster bomber. And that was just WWII. Then there were the French Mirages, the MiG Soviet fighters, the F-15s and the Russian Bear. Every year I tried. On the one year I managed to get them both to come with me, it was fogged out – a frequent problem in that damp part of the Atlantic world. The promised Red Arrows were a no show. Ditto the Spits. This confirmed every prejudice they had against the show.

And then. And then. 2010. 28 July. This would be different. This year they were expecting a visit from the last Vulcan flying in the world. Making its last appearance. A big day. My entire aviation childhood was exemplified in this magnificent aeroplane. I wanted to see her fly for the very last time. And, reluctantly, Josh came with me to see, but mainly to hear her.

All the way there I talked of her sleek lines but mainly of the thunderous engine noise. “I get it, dad. It’s loud.” You could hear Josh’s eyebrows rising with exasperation. “Loud doesn’t do it justice”, I continued, carried away on a fervour of nostalgia mixed with anticipation. We arrived and parked up. There were the usual medley of nondescript ancient aircraft on the ground to gawk at and clamber over and inside. The hours went by. The Royal Moroccan Airforce’s Acrobatic Team did some rather pedestrian manoeuvres up above the crowd against the backdrop of an azure sky. Ho, hum, all rather humdrum.

My ears pricked up way before anyone saw the Vulcan coming in from the South. It had evidently flown in an arc around Culdrose, shifting from its original flight approach path to an approach which would show the plane off to best effect. “She’s here”, I said to Josh. “Where?”. “Look over there”. I pointed to the south. “There’s nothing there, dad.” “Ssh. Listen“, I implored.

Then we saw her *. A great boomerang shape about 3 miles out and just 25 degrees off the deck, belching smoke out of the massive engines. Josh still wasn’t impressed but he picked up on the hushed sense of excitement amongst the crowd. I passed him the binoculars. The tannoy had picked up on the direction of the crowd’s gaze by now and the deep, clipped tones of all airshow announcers everywhere chimed in to announce the imminent arrival of the star of today’s show. There was a run down on the Vulcan’s active service credits and some bunny about the tech spec. Within 30 seconds the announcer was drowned out as the Vulcan passed overhead, her huge underbelly seemingly within arms reach. I looked at Josh. There was a broad smile all the way across his face. The magic was working.

The Vulcan did a few more turns to re-approach and fly past overhead, then, the moment all we fans had been waiting for: she pulled a vertical climb right above the crowd and switched on the afterburners. You could feel the force. It shook you. It shook the ground under our feet. It shook the sky. Speech was pointless. We stole a glance at each other as the plane climbed. Josh grimaced and then smiled to say “That is quite loud, actually” and we both smiled. Every car alarm in the car park was set off by the vibration which made us both laugh.

She climbed and climbed. And climbed. This was one impressive aircraft. She may have a terrifying purpose – to deliver Britain’s nuclear payload if required – but out of a sombre raison d’etre was produced an aircraft capable of withstanding most of what could be thrown at it whilst operating at an extraordinary level of performance. And she sounded like the God of fire she was named after. She didn’t disappoint.

In the car, which, felt very puny after what we had just experienced, Josh had a newfound respect for one of my hyperbolic childhood reminiscences. (Only 49 to go.) He had witnessed the flying of a legend into the history books. And it did not go gentle into that good night. It raged against the dying of the light. Just as a God should.

* The 2010 RNAS Culdrose Airshow appearance by the Vulcan is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTPNR6-FIEk