A DAD’S got to do what a dad’s got to do – no matter what it takes. When his kids say they need him, he has to spring into action, which is why I spent last Sunday driving to London and back in the same day.

My baby girl is grown-up now, living in London, and flying all over the world – but she still needs me to come to the rescue.

“Dad, I need your help,” came the plea when her landlord decided he wanted to re-occupy the flat where she and her friends have been living for the past couple of years. She said it in that pathetic, on-the-verge-of-tears kind of way daughters conjure up when they’re in the process of wrapping their dads round their little fingers.

They had to move their stuff out by the weekend and there was going to be a gap before they found somewhere new to live. My old friend Ted had agreed she could have a room in his house until she found somewhere, but she needed me to collect most of her belongings and take them back to the family home in County Durham.

She was going to be jetting off abroad over the deadline weekend, so she sent me her postcode for the sat-nav, and promised to leave instructions on what to take and what not to take from her room.

London and back is a long way so I asked my 84-year-old mum to come with me for company, promising that we’d play her favourite music during the journey. As mums do, she came stocked with supplies: enough sandwiches to feed an army, endless bags of Hula Hoops (which were slightly past their best if I’m honest) a stash of chocolate éclairs in her pockets, and a flask of coffee.

I love my mum, I really do, but five hours of Perry Como, Andy Williams and Nat King Cole, in between being asked if you want another ham bun every ten miles, is a test of anyone’s affection.

Despite the sat-nav conking out and the traffic into London being typically horrendous, we made it to my daughter’s house in Wood Green. Luckily, one of her flat-mates, Louis, was there, otherwise, I’m not sure how I’d have coped.

“There’s not really that much,” my baby girl had said on the phone. But her room was half-filled with boxes and bags, each with a sign stuck on top: “This is to go.” Or “Be extra careful with this.” Or “Don’t take this.”

I let out a deep sigh and grabbed the first of the heavy boxes with Louis. It was only when I turned round that I saw the sign on her bedroom door that made the 600 miles, between 8am and 7pm, all worthwhile: “Love you, Dad.”

The Northern Echo:

Do you know what? If she told me she needed me to drive round the world, I’d do it like a shot.

The things they say

THANKS to Clair Carter Metcalfe, of Darlington, who got in touch to tell me how her five-year-old daughter had been put on red in the traffic light behaviour system at school for talking in a PE lesson after being told to stop.

“Why didn’t you stop talking when you were asked to?” inquired Clair.

“Because the teacher was rude to me,” replied her daughter.

“What do you mean, he was rude to you?”

“Well, I was in the middle of a conversation, but I hadn’t finished. You always tell me it’s rude to interrupt and I should wait until you’ve finished your conversation, so he should have waited til I’d finished.”

BARBARA Evans, of Norton, had an interesting experience with her six-year-old step-daughter, who’d been taken to the optician’s with an eye infection. After being checked over, the little girl emerged with an excited declaration: “Yay! I don’t need glasses, I just had an orgasm.”