“It is a wise child that knows its own father, and an unusual one that unreservedly approves of him.” – Mark Twain (1927).

Mark Twain is often acclaimed for being an insightful novelist and humourist and his observations of children’s relationships with their fathers are no exception. Like many children contemptuous of the generation gap, Twain said of his father, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Fathers do tend to get a hearty dose of their children’s scorn, until years later as parents themselves, the children begin to appreciate the sacrifices and strains of fatherhood. The cycle has repeated itself down the ages and, as Cyril Connolly put it, “it is the one war in which everyone changes sides”.

Traditionally, fathers have been seen as the stern and rather distant parent, but the Stone Ages show that men were never really given a chance to be otherwise. Back in those days, men were sent hunting when it came time for their child’s birth because it was feared they would become too attached to their child and not get any work done. Laugh if you will, but it is only relatively recently that fathers have been encouraged to attend the birth of their children.

I’ve often written about my father, who first introduced me to the joys and frustrations of crosswords. Dad loved solving the cryptic crossword in the Daily Telegraph, on the train commuting from London. When he arrived home, his restless nature and active mind made it hard for him to relax and my mother urged all of us children to slow him up while she prepared dinner. So it was that I would ask him about the cryptic clues in the paper, which he then taught me to solve. I started making cryptic crosswords for him to solve, with homespun clues about the family, and thus learned by necessity how to make crosswords. The rest, as they say, is history!

To all the dads in our puzzling community – thank you!

Happy Father’s Day and happy puzzling!