Will’s World: Evans Breeding Values run true to form

There’s a framed Henry Brewis print on my parents’ kitchen wall that caused much hilarity in our family when it was bought many years ago, and in some ways it is even funnier now.

It portrays a typical farmyard scene – a father in an old and patched jacket carrying a bale of straw in one hand and a bag of feed in the other, a bedraggled looking collie following him miserably through the puddles, and an exasperated mother carrying buckets of milk and a teat bottle while bollocking their little lad who’s throwing a tantrum over losing a wellie in the mud.

The eerily prophetic caption underneath reads: “Now stop that, William, or you’ll grow up to be bad-tempered and destitute like your father!”

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Although I’m not quite destitute yet, the rest is undoubtedly true, because we all turn into our fathers eventually, don’t we? It’s a terrible realisation when you find it happening, though.

Antique angst

One minute you’re a relatively young man, still just about clinging on to the last vestiges of youth and a social life, and the next you’re complaining that no one in the house knows how to switch a light off, before falling asleep in your “Dad chair” while watching Antiques Roadshow.

I’m starting to physically resemble the old fella too, which is a relief to him because I didn’t much until recently, and I think he’d always had a question in the back of his mind about that smooth-talking milk tanker driver who was hanging around here in 1977.

But now, when I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom all bleary-eyed and half asleep, I get the shock of my life when I glance at the mirror and see him scowling back at me. It’s disconcerting, to say the least.

I am appalled by my children’s taste in music (and if you’ve had the misfortune of being forced to listen to Radio 1 for more than a few minutes on a car journey lately, you’ll know what I mean).

You can’t understand the lyrics, and don’t get me started on the lack of melody or the fact that they want it on so loud I can’t hear myself think.

Of course, my dad said similar things while I was trying to watch Top of the Pops in the mid-1990s, and I’m sure his dad had some choice words to say about the Rolling Stones et al, too. You can’t fight this thing. It’s inevitable.

Vintage vernacular

In the summer months I’ve started carrying a pen and notebook in my shirt pocket, purely so I can knowingly point to them and say things like:

“The faintest ink is better than the strongest memory.” Which, as we all know, is an ancient Dad Proverb handed down through the generations.

And I refuse to pay for anything using my phone, preferring to haul around a two-inch-thick brown leather wallet that contains a wad of cash, a photo of my wife, various receipts and business cards, and a condom that expired 15 years ago, which I’ve kept for sentimental reasons.

But the day I realised all was truly lost was when I found out that the young man who was patiently showing me how to operate the tech on our new tractor was born in the same year that I graduated from college. 

Then, later that evening, I had to get my 10-year-old daughter to work the TV for me. The transformation was complete.

Now, where are my slippers, I need to go and turn down the thermostat.