I LIKE to think my children are lucky to have my genes, but~ I’m not convinced they fully appreciate the talents they have inherited.

Hannah, my only daughter, is in London, training to be a dancer, and she’ll soon be embarking on an exciting tour around Europe.

To be honest, I’ve always taken the view that she gets at least some of her dancing skills from me because, even if I say so myself, I have natural rhythm and rather nifty footwork.

Not quite Gene Kelly, but stylish nonetheless.

Anyway, last week, Hannah’s dance company, Edge, announced it had arranged a “live streaming” on the internet. It meant people could watch rehearsals and then get the opportunity to take part in a question and answer session with the dancers.

Hannah emailed a web-link and I logged on during a break at work. It was lovely to see her going through her paces and to hear the choreographers explain the thinking behind the routines. I’d have probably done a few things slightly differently but, hey, it’s all down to interpretation.

Then came the questions: “Have you always wanted to be a dancer?” someone asked.

Hannah confidently stepped forward to give her answer: “Right from being very little, I just wanted to be a ballerina, and then I discovered contemporary dance,” she explained.

I glowed with pride until she added a comment which, quite frankly, felt like a dagger through my shoulderblades: “It’s really strange because none of my family have any dance ability whatsoever,” she said.

I sat there, mulling over her words.

No dance ability whatsoever? How dare she say such a thing on the world-wide web? How dare she?

My wife is nowhere near as good a dancer as me so she wasn’t too upset by the slur. I, on the other hand, was outraged to the point of considering legal action.

It was even more distressing than the time my darling daughter, as an eight-year-old, marched up to me on the dance-floor at a New Year’s Eve party in our village hall, put her hands on her hips, and said: “Daddy, will you please sit down because you’re embarrassing us all.”

At the time, I put it down to her not being old enough to have developed good judgement but, now she’s 21, I’m finding it hard to forgive her.

“I can’t believe she said it,” I said to my son Max, 16, hoping he’d show some male camaraderie.

“Face it, dad,” he replied. “You do ‘the aeroplane’ when you dance. You don’t move your feet – you just stick your arms out like wings and move your upper body as if you’re gliding.”

For the record, I don’t accept any of this. I don’t dance like an aeroplane.

I do move my feet. And it’s not true that I have no dance ability whatsoever.

It’s time dads stopped getting such a hard time over their dancing. Daddancers of the world unite – hit the dance-floor and be proud!

THE THINGS WIVES SAY

HALLOWEEN is long gone, but we still have a pumpkin lantern sitting on a wall outside our front door.

With every day that passes, it shrivels a little bit more and looks increasingly cross.

I tweeted a picture of it last week, saying: “Warning, the longer you leave a pumpkin out in the cold, the grumpier it gets.”

Helen Gordon promptly tweeted back: “Just like husbands then.”

There’s simply no need, is there?

THE THINGS KIDS SAY

MICHAEL Atkinson, of Darlington, told me how he was in the middle of a quiz with his eightyear- old niece.

Emily was asked: “Name an item you can put something on.”

Michael expected to hear “table” or “desk” or possibly “tray”.

Emily had different ideas: “Credit card,” was her immediate response.

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