You might remember that in June 2017 there was a pretty dramatic general election which was followed a few days later, by the Grenfell Tower tragedy. I was covering both for my daily radio show. It was probably the busiest period of my life. My company was thriving in the background, almost drowning in work, and I felt myself fraying at the edges in my attempt to keep up with it all. I became emotionally invested in Grenfell, covering the story live from the scene in the immediate aftermath amidst all the tears and and rage and despair. I was drawn into the situation on a deeper level partly because it took place in a part of west London that had been my home for several years. But also because my head was all over the place at the time anyway: I hadn’t had a drink for two years but I was what you might call ‘stark raving sober.’ Work had replaced booze and drugs as my destructive obsession; I was now using my career as a means of distraction from the deeper emotional issues I had previously suppressed by getting battered six nights a week.
Anyway, it was in this context that I ruined fathers day on Sunday June 18th by throwing a plate of liver and bacon all over my dad in the middle of a fancy west end restaurant.
I had rocked up to this celebratory event feeling tired and disgruntled. My dad doesn’t like my siblings and I making a fuss of him on such occasions and tries to avoid our calls and invites. We had eventually convinced him to let us take him for dinner by booking the most expensive place we could think of. He had attended begrudgingly. He can be a bit weird, my old man.
At some point between the starters and main course he had taken issue with a throwaway comment I had made about politicians being corrupt.
It was one of the many things I say on a daily basis that I haven’t really though through. But he picked me up on it and wouldn’t leave it alone. I asked him to stop, explaining that I had just been talking shit, but for some reason he wouldn’t let up. He interrogated and probed and dissected and niggled incessantly. I was so tired and anxious and muddle-headed. To be honest, it was fucking horrible.
As he berated me for my idiocy, my two older brothers sat by and heckled, laughing at his tirade from the sidelines. They had been drinking and seemed to want to ramp the whole situation up for their entertainment. My older sister just looked uncomfortable and embarrassed. I had arrived in a state of mental and emotional and exhaustion that was not my dad or anyone else’s fault. They wouldn’t have known I was a man on the edge. I’d like to think that if they had my brothers might not have goaded my dad on to further attack me. But who knows? What happened next was not anyone’s fault but my own.
I told my dad to fuck off, loudly enough for the the other diners in the swishy eatery to turn around and stare.
I momentarily hesitated and considered apologising. But, before I could, my dad tipped me over the edge by smirking and calling me ‘pathetic.’
At that exact moment the waiter arrived with his main course: a plate of liver and bacon, served on a bed of creamy mash, smothered in rich onion gravy. I looked at my dad’s sneering face. I looked at the sumptuous plate of food. The tempatation was just too great. Reader, I chucked it at him.
I grabbed a fistful of the overpriced offal and launched it from close range into my father - the mad, brownish-red concoction exploded all over his crisp white shirt. Bullseye. He gawped in astonishment. The waiter froze in amazement. By bothers stopped sniggering. The whole fucking restaurant fell momentarily silent but for the awkward clink of cutlery on china. My sister looked like she was going to cry. I turned and strutted out of the joint, giving the maitre’d a cocky: ‘see ya’ on my way.
I got on my scooter and rode home in the evening heat, fighting back tears the whole way.
I had swaggered out of the restaurant like Jack The Biscuit. But I was totally distraught. Yes, my dad had been a dick. That, to be honest, was nothing new. But I loved him. And I knew he loved me. And I’d always thought that his occasionally cuntish tendencies were borne out of other stuff in his life that I just didn’t know about or understand.
Whatever, I just felt absolutely fucking ashamed and disgusted with myself. I really wanted to hug him and tell him I loved him and I wanted him to say the same thing back to me.
I don’t know if you’ve ever thrown a plate of liver and bacon at your dad but, take it from me, it doesn’t make you feel great about yourself.
When I got my home I staggered into the front room, slumped down on the sofa and poured everything out to my wife. Not just the mad events from the restaurant but the exhaustion, confusion and anxiety that had been plaguing me for the past few weeks. I had hidden all of it because I was ashamed of it. From the outside looking in, my life might have looked great. I didn’t want to be that bloke moaning about the ‘pressure’ of his dream job or the ‘stress’ of raising a family. I am still embarrassed to be writing this stuff now, to be honest. I know there are people out there who have tougher lives than mine was then or is now. I also know that there are loads of you reading this who have difficult relationships with your dad.
My dad can be a bit of a bully. Most people in his life have just let him away with it. But I struggle to. He left my mum to raise four kids on a council estate when I was just a baby, running off with a younger woman and starting a lucrative new business which allowed him to live in relative splendour while we struggled in borderline poverty and a state of non-stop psycho-emotional chaos for the next couple of decades. I have a lot of resentment around that. I’ve inherited his tendency to charge enthusiastically into conflict with people. As a result, me and my dad argue quite a bit.
As a kid I carried around this feeling that he looked down on me a bit.
I also had a lot of residual hang-ups around being a baby brother. I am the youngest sibling by a seven year margin and grew up being shoved around a bit, physically and mentally, by older brothers who served as twisted de-facto father figures. So my dad having a pop at my intelligence in a fancy restaurant while my pissed-up brothers cheered him on from the sidelines was kind of a perfect storm as far as my psyche was concerned.
Like I say, I had been sober for two years but that sobriety had lulled me into a false sense of security about myself. I thought my head was straight and that I had conquered my demons. Clearly, I had not. I had stopped imbibing alcohol and drugs, yes. But that was where my sobriety began and ended. The underlying issues that I had been trying to drink, smoke and snort away for the best part of four decades were still lurking there, as strong and poisonous as ever - dictating my barmy responses to situations like the one in that restaurant.
I’ve just read this back and noticed that I have referred to all of my feelings in the past tense as if they don’t exist anymore. That’s bollocks - I still carry all of that shit with me. Resentment, shame, anger, insecurity and all the other crap. But since I slowed my life down a bit, addressed my sobriety more seriously (through meetings, therapy, reading and just getting some proper fucking rest) I have faced that shit more actively. I notice when it is trying to make me act in unhelpful or stupid ways. And so I can control it more. I can reflect more calmly on stuff and prevent myself from flying off the handle. I have managed to get all those bad feelings under control so I don’t walk around on an emotional knife edge all the time, one snide remark away from throwing food at someone.
My dad sent me a text later that evening, presumably after going home and changing his shirt.
He told me he was sorry for winding me up. I couldn’t believe it. Apologies are not really his thing usually. I told him that I was sorry too. However much he had wound me up, my response had been wildly disproportionate. He was just being a grumpy old man. Whereas I was a strung out lunatic. The next day I spoke about the incident in detail on my radio show for the best part of three hours. At the time, it felt like the most sensible way of processing things. Christ, no wonder the station didn’t renew my contract.
The Reset Podcast With Clarke Carlisle
Ex-footballer and all round top bloke Clarke Carlisle joined me on the pod this week. We talked about his career, his childhood, his life long struggle with depression and the steps he has taken to overcome all his demons in recent years. Frank, honest, funny and inspiring. Clarke is one of the smartest blokes out there, a truly wise man. Have a listen.
Some services, links and phone numbers to help you through the tough times
https://www.samaritans.org/ Tel 116 123
@calm 0800 58 58 58
@YoungMindsUK 0800 018 2138
@ChairtySane 0300 304 7000
https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/
https://cocaineanonymous.org.uk/
https://andysmanclub.co.uk/
Eh up mate, I fell out we me old man on fathers days 2007 he was steaming pissed at a family meal. We wa best mates and we had words, long and short he died the following Thursday without us making up, I found him dead. Will and always has haunted the non closure it’s only my good wife of 3 years (6 all in) that has helped. Love the podcast and top flight. Dan
Oh Sam!!! You've rekindled a few memories for me with this one, mate.
For myself, at age 15 or 16, and raised by my grandmother since 3 weeks of age, I launched a large handful of Vesta Chow Mein -large size (are these still around?? - I've lived in Australia since 1988??) ...lobbing it wholesale across the lounge room, at her head, one lunchtime. She had been incessantly nagging me to bits for what seemed like hours, and hadn't let-up to allow me to eat, while I'd remained silent until I lost the plot. I can still see the heavily sauced noodles & veggies hanging-off her glasses & hair, just like a cartoon, really.
It stopped the nagging but was, of course, a terrible thing for me to have done. I don't recall any other issues leading up, save the nagging, but I do know, and often reflect upon how it was far from easy her raising me, as her son, for all those years, and my often ingratitude as reward....not being a bad young guy at all, but nine of it seldom being easy for her in her 60s.
All things were resolved, but I do still carry the guilt of being an oft difficult and angsty teen, and miss her terribly since her passing in the early 90s.
Thank you, Sam, for bearing even more of your heart and soul.
Lindsay