Brief encounters

COUPLE of columns ago, I told the story of the “Feast Coast Main Line” – how my wife has got into the habit of supplying food to my daughter as she passes through Darlington station on her tour with a dance company.

Hannah gets steps off her train for little more than a minute and her mum is waiting with a hug plus a home-made Summer Berry Tart, Bakewell Tart, or Apricot Frangipan.

I’m usually up to my eyes at work and unable to join her on the platform and, to be honest, I’ve begun to feel a little left out.

My wife and I were on a London train the other day and the guard did a double-take as he passed us.

“Excuse me – it is you isn’t it?” he asked. “The man from the Echo?”

Flattered, I confirmed that I was indeed me and prepared to be questioned about what it was like making key decisions about editorial policy. But the guard was more interested in my wife.

“And this must be your good lady,”

he said, ignoring me and entering into a surreal conversation about her food-supplying antics.

“Have you delivered a Battenburg to your daughter on the train this week?” he wondered. “I think it’s wonderful – really lovely.”

I’m not having this, I thought. I can’t have her taking all the credit.

So when I got a text from my wife last week, saying that Hannah was due to pass through Darlington at 1.22am on her way to Berwick, I dropped everything.

The train was on time and Hannah jumped off, all smiles, to be presented with a Mary Berry Apple Devonshire Traybake. I stood by my wife’s side as they hugged – but there was no cuddle for me.

I brought Dad with me,” said my wife, eventually. “Oh, Dad, I didn’t realise that was you!” replied Hannah.

As we hugged – very briefly – I couldn’t help wondering who she thought I was. I’d made a special effort to be there and she thought I was just some bloke who happened to be hanging around my wife on the platform.

I confess to feeling a bit second best but made a point of being back at the station a few days later when her train headed back to London.

Hannah took safe delivery of a treacle tart from her mum and then gave me a big hug.

“This is for you,” she said, handing me a bag. “Happy Father’s Day.”

I opened the bag on Father’s Day and there was a card inside, with a photo of me holding her when she was a baby. There was a message which ended: “You’re a bit embarrassing at times but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Thank you for being my Dad. Lots of love, your Baby Girl xxx.”

These are the moments that make you realise parenthood is an express train whizzing by far too fast.

I wiped away a tear and reached inside the bag for my presents – a bottle of organic beer and a packet of clotted cream fudge.

I could get used to this Feast Coast Line malarkey.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

MY next door neighbour John is a lovely fella. Father-of-two, salt of the earth, always willing to help. He recently bought his wife Liz an iPad and she’s fallen in love with it. In fact, she’s so besotted, this is what she said to me the other day: “If the house was on fire, and I had a choice of saving either John or my iPad, it wouldn’t be an easy decision – but there are photos of John on the iPad.”

JOE Westcott, ten, of Middlesbrough, was talking to his dad after being shown his first sex education film at school: “It was OK, but it was no Lego Movie,” said Joe.