Learning the hard way...

My Dad (aka Blair Bear or Teddy Blair) is a very cool Dad. He's been retired since I was a teenager so it was nice to always have him around the house growing up.
One thing my Dad loves more than anything is stamp collecting - he has stamps stored all over the house in ice cream cartons, shoe boxes, cardboard boxes, plastic boxes - oh & some are even kept in albums. He's been a collector for as long as I can remember and probably for longer than my mother would care to remember ! I always try to find interesting first day covers in my travels to send him and used to spend a lot of time whilst working at Channel 4 digging through the bins to save the good ones for him (must not have any ink on them, must not be torn, must be salvageable).

Here he is with his album and some very special first day covers from his father...

Dad On Technology:

(after me asking him to say yes (i.e. press enter) to the computer)
“ but how will it hear me?”

Dad On Nature:
"Beaches with waves have no personality – now here in the spit, this is personality – lots of different things to watch"......

a few minutes later.....

"LOOK SUSIE - see the sea plane ? Already there’s personality...”

Dad On beating me playing the card game Euka:
“ha ha ha - you tried to make it and only got 1 trick and I got 4 tricks and I won - ha ha ha”


I don't know why it shocked me really - he was the same when I was 5 years old - we'd be playing monopoly and he'd have hotels lined up on all his properties and I'd be there, one measly house on Old Kent Road and he’d always say to mum “Pat, they’ve got to learn about property”....

He was right of course, he usually is....