Andrew Smith: Daddy Cool

IT is becoming an all-too-common refrain from my five-year-old. "Maybe we'll get grandpa to fix it," Sylvie will say, in a kindly, let-me-down-gently way after a toy breaks, a fault disables electrical equipment or a piece of furniture comes apart. She has long ago been disabused of any notion that her daddy is a do-anything, superhuman sort. It's not supposed to be like this.

The entire 42 years I shared this earth with my late father, he was more than mere mortal to me. With good reason. He had the full DIY repertoire and could generally tackle any decorating task. I still marvel when I think of him, perched on a plank between two ladders, papering the walls of my high-ceilinged flat to perfection - quarter of a century after a triple bypass.

Even when his body failed him in later years, he remained my personal Wikipedia. And if his encyclopaedic knowledge didn't stretch to any topic, he had a dazzling array of books that would shed the necessary light. That's where 40 years as a librarian and his attention to detail came in. In terms of the latter, he was no Egon Ronay, but could make things just so, just right. Every tiny corner had an even spread in his roasted cheese.

I remember going out for Halloween as the Phantom Raspberry Blower (of old London town, which will be familiar to fans of The Two Ronnies) and he spent ages constructing and pinning my cape together for the moment I raised arms and "thrrrrthwwed" as doors were opened to me. He darned socks. One black pair so well, indeed, that I inherited and wore them into my 20s. He had darned them for his mum's funeral. She died in 1958.

Mercifully, I have a wife, father-in-law and brother who, between them, aggregate the life skills I somehow grew up witnessing but am missing. My father was a new man before the advent of the new man, and could change a nappy on one knee, with one hand. What with my near-two-year-old son Corin, I have now been nappy-changing for five years solid. Yet the other week my big sister watched me and said it was like man discovering fire.

My daughter does give me the big doe-eyed look of wonderment sometimes, it must be said. "You're so funny, Daddy," she beams. It isn't exactly the greatest parental endorsement, though. I mean, Woody Allen's funny.

This article was originally published in Scotland on Sunday on August 7.