Breakfast with Goofy

I remember from my childhood a breakfast conversation with my dad. I liked my sums, and I said “I’ve been thinking, Dad, in the year 2000, I’ll be the same age as you are now.” He liked that – as an actuary, fond of number puzzles, he recognised a kindred spirit. He once thrilled Mum by pointing out the day when their combined ages added up to 100. So that would have been in April 1972. Similarly I can date my conversation with Dad. I turned 44 in 2000, and Dad turned 44 in 1963, so I would have been six or seven.

One of the most exciting things about being a parent – if you have the energy to appreciate it – is watching your child’s personality and sense of humour emerge and surprise you, first in physical play, then in language and dialogue, finally in jokes and banter. Naturally, every child seems like a genius to their doting parents, so these family tales should be read in that light.

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Rachel was an early, prolific and witty talker, while from very young Alice had a gift for physical comedy. I thought of them as our Groucho and Harpo.

Rachel has forensic reasoning, which she has carried into her career. I can fairly accurately fix the date we became aware of it: about the time Dad and I watched Michael Owen score and David Beckham get sent off against Argentina, so late June 1998, when Rachel and Alice had just turned four and two.

We were on Mull, doing our traditional walk from Tobermory to the lighthouse. As a party of eleven, aged from two to seventy-eight, progress was slow. Rachel observed:

“Alice is yer slowest person that can walk.” Uncle Rob indulgently engaged:

“What, slower than a snail?”

“No, yer slowest person that can walk!”

“What, slower than a baby?”

“No, yer slowest person that can walk!” Then the killer blow.

“You should listen!”

Rachel’s diction was still imperfect, and walk came out as wart. The combination of childish speech and ruthless logic was devastating, and Rob, his benign avuncular offerings rudely rejected, muttered something about her future career as a lawyer.

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A couple of years later, Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid came on the CD player in the car. The song reached the lines:

“Bet you on land they understand
Bet they don’t reprimand their daughters”

“Oh yes they do!” piped up Rachel from the back.

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Alice had, and has, a delightful infectious chuckle. On a walk by the Thames, she put some rubbish in a bin, and the lid bounced back unexpectedly. She recoiled in comically exaggerated horror, and repeated the scene three times, I burst into laughter. She was very young. It’s a big moment, the first time your child intentionally makes you laugh.

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At the end of a long journey to the Yorkshire Dales, we were growing tired and impatient for the journey to be over, when Alice, about six, affected a convincing Chicago gangster accent, and greeted every church with “Look at da choich!” or “Da boys are hot on our tail Bugsy, we’re gonna hide in da choich.” Good times.

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On another trip, Bowie’s song The Man Who Sold The World had just played on the mix tape. As we passed through a rural area where pungent muck had recently been spread, and the odour seeped into the car, the traditional question went up: “OK, who did that?” This time it was Alice’s voice singing from the back:

“Oh no, not me
I never lost control”

It was all in the timing.

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One generation after my dad heard me make that arithmetical observation, it was my turn to discover more of my child’s personality. The girls had seen an advert for Disney World on TV, and Alice excitedly proposed a family trip there. “We can have breakfast with Goofy!” Rachel – who I reckon was about eight – shot back “But we already get to have breakfast with Goofy two days a week!”

I was ten per cent deeply offended. But really, the speed, the engineering, the lethal concealed barb. That’s my girl.