Not Your Everyday Dad …

Posted on June 20th, 2010 | by Rohan |

As I mentioned back in March, mums are so often the focal point of any family, the glue that binds it together. However, not that I suspect that he was a huge fan of Marvin Gaye, my biology teacher once told me that “It Takes Two”. I also suspect that he would have seen the irony of Gaye’s relationship with his father on this of all days.

It does more often than not take two to raise a family and, in that respect, the role of a father should never be underestimated. So once annually, we have the opportunity to show our thanks on Father’s Day.

Although my childhood was immensely happy, I daren’t presume that it was normal. As an international sportsman, my father wasn’t really around that much. This was through no fault of his own, it was simply his job, a high profile but woefully underpaid job in that era.

Six months touring overseas with the West Indies, then much of the summer playing away (cricket, that is!) for Warwickshire, pretty much meant that he was at home about 3 months of the year, if that. I can certainly count on one hand the number of Christmases that we spent together as a family.

However, whilst mum and I had it difficult, I can only imagine that it would have been more difficult waking up in a hotel room on the other side of the world from your family.

I hear the media and general public often talking of how easy professional sportsmen have life, well I dare them to step into the reality of life under a lens and out of a suitcase, and see how long they survive.

As a man, I always knew dad as a funny, charming, but fairly shy individual. A childhood spent in relative poverty meant that he cherished whatever he could give to his family. However, combined with the long periods away from home, this possibly lead to a concentration on material rather than emotional provision.

Either way, I can never be anything but grateful to the man who provided a wonderful education on a salary that really did not allow for it, and can never have anything but the greatest love for the man for whom I used to cry every September when we dropped him at Heathrow to depart for the winter.

He will tell you himself that he is not without fault, not by a long way. But to be honest, I possibly share his greatest faults, those being pride and stubbornness. There are others, but you would have to ask my mum about those!!

To me, he was always just dad, in just the same way that others had theirs. I just had to accept that I would have less time with him. If I needed to spend time with my dad, I would just pick up a cricket book or turn on the TV, that was all.

Maturity teaches us much, and whilst all of my friends know about the special close relationship that I share with my mum, less of them probably understand the complex yet very special relationship of this only son with his father.

Cricketing hero, absent provider, my only dad. A Happy Father’s Day to him and all deserving dads everywhere.