CLEARLY, it’s important to try to make a good impression in front of your children’s friends. And, yes, it’s true that I haven’t always managed it.

There was the time, when my daughter was 14 years old and three boys called for her. Hannah opened the front door with a full view into the kitchen where I was cooking, dressed in my baggiest shorts and T-shirt, and on my third large glass of red wine.

I happened to be attached to my iPod and was singing along in a little bubble of my own. To the throbbing guitar strains of Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down”, I turned into Freddie Mercury, grabbing an imaginary microphone stand, dancing to the end of the kitchen, going down on one knee, then trotting back.

I was yelling at the top of my voice: “Tie your mother down, tie your mother down; Lock your daddy out of doors, I don’t need him nosing round, Tie your mother down, tie your mother down, GIMME ALL YOUR LOVE TONIGHT!”

I finished with my fist outstretched in front of me and my head thrown back, basking in the adoration of the imaginary ecstatic crowd.

There was a tap on my shoulder. It was Jack, aged 13, pointing towards the front door where I could see three teenage boys, staring at me, while Hannah buried her head in her hands. Yes, that was quite embarrassing – but my wife’s no better.

Jack still cringes at the memory of bringing his new girlfriend home for the first time and my wife – also fuelled by a few glasses of wine – went off to bed performing the Farewell song from The Sound of Music. There she was, on the stairs, singing: “So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu…adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu.”

We recently drove down to London to spend the weekend with Hannah, now 23, and meet her new boyfriend. We were on our best behaviour, taking them to an Italian restaurant, and engaging in polite conversation.

As the evening wore on, we all began to relax and the wine flowed. It was going so well that we decided to retire to a nearby pub. There was half a bottle of wine left on the table so my wife shoved it into her handbag and took it with her.

The pub was busy side and as I queued at the bar, my wife, was surreptitiously removing her half-bottle of Merlot from her handbag to avoid having to pay for another drink.

It was probably one of the more embarrassing episodes of our marriage to see her sneak behind the bar when she thought the barmaid was too busy to notice, grab a glass from a shelf, and pour herself a large one.

The barmaid spotted what was going on and stopped serving a large bald man in order to give my wife a severe telling off and warn her that she’d be barred if she ever went behind the bar again.

The angry barmaid then rolled her eyes at me and shook her head as if to say “You get some right ones in here”. I shook my head back at her in sympathy as if to say: “She’s not with me.” The new boyfriend just watched – open-mouthed. It remains to be seen whether he sticks around.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

THANK you to The 33 Club, which meets at the Parkmore Hotel in Eaglescliffe, for inviting me to speak to them recently. Maureen Scott recalled the time she was teaching in Cambridgeshire and was marking essays about the Battle of Hastings.

One little boy wrote: “Harold got shot in the eye, but he kept on bravely farting.”

Another member, who remains anonymous, remembered the time grandson Oliver was visiting and declared he was hungry. There was no white bread in the house, so Oliver was given a brown bread crust. True to his name, he came back for more, saying: “Please, Grandma, can I have some more of that dirty bread.”

ANOTHER member told of the time she was in bed on Mother’s Day morning and her son and daughter came up with a cup of tea. “How did you manage that?” asked the mum. “I didn’t think we had any milk left?”

“It’s OK,” was the reply. “We got some out of the cat’s dish.”

AND, finally, a former teacher – slightly red-faced and also not wishing to be named – remembered the time her pupils were asked to discuss a farming programme they had just watched.

One little boy, called Jimmy, said loudly: “We saw two f***ers, Miss.”

Naturally, she was appalled to hear the F-word come out of someone so young. “What did you say, Jimmy?” she asked, crossly.

“Two f***ers, Miss,” replied Jimmy. “Well, the farmer called them heiffers – but I knew what he meant.”