BEING a good listener, and taking note of your partner’s likes and dislikes, is a vital part of a successful marriage. Or so I’m told. I’ve, therefore, done my best to develop listening skills to keep my wife happy.

I’m the first to admit it’s a skill I’ve taken time to acquire, but, even if I say so myself, I think I’ve become quite good at it.

In recent years, I’ve got into the habit of making a note on my computer whenever my wife says she likes something. It means that when her birthday or Christmas comes along, I normally have a ready-made list of ideas. I don’t pretend to be perfect by any means, but I’m better at presents than I used to be in the early days.

So, when Brown-Eyed Girl came on the car radio a week before Mother’s Day, and she mentioned how much she liked Van Morrison, but didn’t have anything of his in her music collection, I made a mental note to buy her his greatest hits.

The intention was to give her it for Mother’s Day myself, but it didn’t quite work out that way.

Our youngest, Max, came home for the weekend and I asked him if he’d got his Mum a present. As an impoverished student, the answer, naturally, was “no”. I, therefore, handed over the Van Morrison CD for him to give to her.

Mother’s Day dawned and it was lovely to have all four children home, as well as a visit from granddaughter Chloe.

Max duly handed the CD over, together with a nice card which, to be fair, he had managed to purchase all by himself.

His mother was delighted by the careful thought he’d put into the gift – by pure coincidence, when she’d picked him up from the station, she’d also told him how much she likes Van Morrison.

And so it came to pass that, in front of the gathered family, she thanked Max for his kindness and proceeded to give me an impromptu lecture in the art of listening.

“Do you know? Max is only 20 and he’s already learned the skill of picking up on what I like – it’s taken you most of our marriage,” she said.

I’d been up to my eyes with work, but found time to drive into the town centre specially and the CD had cost me £9.99 yet here I was, getting a rollicking for not being thoughtful enough. I had to just sit there and take it.

Max looked across at me, sheepishly.

For a second, I thought he was going to honourably leap to my defence.

But he didn’t. He just smiled and said: “Yeah, Dad. Watch and learn…watch and learn.”

I wouldn’t care – he didn’t even take the price off!

The things they say

KELLY LEANNE, of Thornaby, asked her son Thomas, nearly seven, when he was going to give up his soothe and glow sea horse.

“When I get a wife to cuddle instead,” came the reply.

CHRIS FORWOOD, from all the way down in Epsom, got in touch via Twitter to explain how a friend’s daughter had asked: “When did the world become colour.” She’d been watching a black and white film.

KAREN MILBURN got in touch from Newcastle to tell me how her little boy Jacob, seven, had given her a lovely Mother’s Day biscuit he’d made at school.

“I dropped it on the floor, but my friend Matthew gave it a good wipe,” he told her.

Naturally, she had to eat it.

  • IN the last Grandad At Large column, I reported a “Things they say” from Chris Orton, of Durham.

Chris had written to tell me about the question he’d just been asked by his six-year-old son Sam: “Daddy, is there a film called Pink Knobs and Broomsticks?”

Stupidly, I posed the question: “Whatever would Julie Andrews say?” Julie Andrews, of course, had nothing to do with Bedknobs and Broomsticks. It starred Angela Lansbury.

I think I’m getting old. Sorry.