IT was just like the old days - me and my boys going off to see a Star Wars film.

Christopher, our eldest, alias The Big Friendly Giant (BFG), was only nine when we went to see The Phantom Menace back in 1999. His brothers, Jack and Max, were six and two respectively so the “baby” stayed at home. The Attack of the Clones followed in 2002 and The Revenge of the Sith was the last one we’d seen together in 2005.

A decade on, The Force Awakens had reawakened our bond. At 25, 22, and 18, my boys are young men now but the lure of a new Star Wars was enough for them to put up with the embarrassment of a night out with their dad.

“Are you paying us in, Dad? Yeah, OK, I’ll come,” said Max.

“God, this brings back so many memories,” said the BFG as we headed for Cineworld in Middlesbrough.

Jack wanted some popcorn. I was feeling all fatherly and benevolent so I handed him a tenner and told him to get a bag of Maltesers too. After all, this was a special occasion.

When Jack came back and gave me 70p change, I honestly thought he was having me on.

“Where’s the rest of it?” I asked.

“Er, that’s it,” he replied.

I’m not tight – honestly I’m not – but more than nine quid for a packet of popcorn and a bag of Maltesers is R2-Dtoo dear. More pop-con than popcorn.

“What planet are they on?” I blurted out. One in a galaxy far, far away, presumably.

It had already cost me more than 30 quid for the tickets!

From then on, the build-up to the film was spent with me telling them how, when my mum took us to the pictures at the Odeon in Middlesbrough, in the late sixties and seventies, there was never any popcorn or sweets.

Me and my two brothers were given a little polythene bag full of Rice Krispies from home and told to make it last through Snow White, Bambi, or Lassie Come Home.

“That’s all my Mum could afford,” I said.

“Yeah, right, Dad – can we just watch the film now,” sighed the BFG.

The Force Awakens was very good and me and the boys bonded all over again. Han Solo was on a cusp of old age, Luke Skywalker was a Jedi in hiding, Princess Leia had been promoted to a general, and Chewbacca was just as hairy.

We can’t wait for the next Star Wars film in a few years but I’ll tell you now – we’ll be raiding the Rice Krispies box before we set out.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

MUM Becky Ketley, in Newton Aycliffe was giving three-year-old Daniel a telling off.

Daniel likes carrots and he’d managed to get bits of them all over his bed and bedroom floor.

"I'm really disappointed,” his mum told him. “I’m now going to have to pick it all up now!"

“It's OK, Mam, you can do the bed and Dad can do the floor," said Daniel.

“And what’s Daniel going to do" asked Becky.

“Watch,” replied Daniel.

TERRY Storey, in Darlington, was moved to get in touch after reading about my disappearing hair.

Terry wrote that the best explanation he’d ever heard for hair-loss came from his eldest son many years ago when he declared with an (h)air of authority: “Daddy, I know why your hair is falling out - it's because your brain is so busy on the inside it's wearing the roots away.”