DADS are heroes. They drop everything and fly to the rescue – like the other night, when my son broke down on the bypass in his clapped-out old car.

The Northern Echo:

It was just past 11pm and I’d had a hard day at work but my first-born – the Big Friendly Giant – needed me.

His battery had gone flat and he was stuck in a lay-by.

It’s a times like this that dads come into their own. I had flashbacks to my own youth when my old Vauxhall Firenza – rust-coloured – broke down and my dad was underneath it for hours, on a freezing cold night, working away with his spanners.

The wheels have turned full circle.

My dad has died now and my son needed his dad to come to his aid.

I should point out that I am hopeless when it comes to anything practical.

I know how to drive a car but that’s about as far as it goes.

I knocked next door to borrow a pair of jump-leads, drove out to the the lay-by, and did myself proud by remembering that red is positive and black is negative – or is it the other way round? Anyway, I got the car going.

We decided to set off for our house – me following him – and made it halfway before the car lost power again. This time, the jump-leads had no effect and, with the car in a precarious position on a bendy country road, we headed home in my car to find some rope to tow his car the rest of the journey.

All I could find in the garage was some old television aerial cable.

“This’ll do,” I told my boy, heroically.

Back at his stricken car, I tied the cable round both bumpers, told him we’d take it really steady, and took the strain. All seemed to be going according to plan until I realised my son’s car wasn’t behind me. The cable had snapped after a yard.

Back we went to the house, about a mile and a half away, to look again for some better rope.

It came to me in a flash as we pulled up on the drive. “I’ve got it,” I announced (heroically). “The swing!”

At the back of the garden was the old rope swing the kids played on when they were little. There was nothing else for it. It was past midnight and we needed the rope from the swing. I held the torch and he cut the rope with a Stanley knife.

There was something sad and symbolic about seeing the swing come down. I suddenly remembered how the kids laughed with excitement when, all those years ago, I used to bend down, pretending to tie my shoe-lace, so they could kick me up the bottom on the downward swing. Happy, happy days.

Back we went to the broken down car and tied the rope to the two bumpers.

“Here we go!” I shouted through my car window and pressed the accelerator.

Once again, I moved forward without my son. The plastic bumper had snapped.

We really should have read the owners’ manuals before we got to this point because it would have saved us a lot of time and grief.

Finally, we discovered that there were proper towing points, with screw-on metal rings to ensure a secure fastening. We set off yet again and, this time, my son’s car rolled along behind me as we covered the mile and a half at a snail’s pace.

It was past 1am before we made it back to safety. The next morning, we got it to a garage, where the problem turned out to be nothing more than a snapped fan-belt.

I told him I’d pay the bill. He said thanks for everything and called me a hero. What more does a dad need to hear?