1. 'MUMMY'S BOY'

I was born a Scorpio in Wellington, New Zealand on 18 November 1938. My father was a dentist, my mother was a housewife. So begins my story.

When I arrived my mother became completely besotted. All mothers do, perhaps, with their first-born, but mine transferred all her love to me. My father stayed just five short years before he left. He went on to marry his dental nurse, an English lady who had already been married twice and had two daughters, one from each marriage. I inherited two stepsisters.

My father left Wellington and set up a new dental practice in Newmarket, Auckland. Fortunately my parents maintained a good relationship and I was able to visit him and his new-found family a couple of times a year. When I was about 14, he sold his Auckland practice, moved to London and started up a new dental practice in Kensington High Street.

I wrote regularly but my father responded intermittently. Like many fathers he wasn’t a good letter writer. However, I still have in my possession a couple of letters he did write which I treasure to this day. In one, he sent me a pencilled portrait a patient had drawn of him. It still sits on a shelf beside my desk where he watches over me every day.

My mother remarried a few years later. My new stepfather was a shirt salesman. Together they adopted a daughter, so I now had two stepsisters and a half sister. A few years later, greener pastures beckoned, and my stepfather left my mother. He married a woman from the next street. My mother didn’t venture into another marriage after the second one failed.

Throughout my life I’ve deeply regretted not having my father with me during my childhood. Yes, I visited him during the school holidays, but it wasn’t the same. My mother continued to heap all her love on me, making most of my decisions on my behalf. This carried on until I was a young adult. When I left school to start work, she laid out the clothes I was to wear the next day, even to the point of selecting my tie!

I never had a hands-on dad, and missed out on that special relationship a son can have with his father. It was always my mother on the sidelines of the rugby match, standing alongside all the other kids’ dads. I also missed the important opportunity to learn from him about how to be a father. When I eventually had my own children I didn’t have an example to draw on. Children need a father to grow with them to learn these things. When that time came for me, I made the