Why is my father looking out of my mirror?

We lads all become aware of a dawning sense of time slipping

Nose hair? Bushy eyebrows? Struggling to tie your shoe laces without fighting for breath?

You are, I’m afraid, becoming your father.

We lads all become aware of a dawning sense of time slipping, and the baton passing through the generations. My own moment occurred towards the end of the last millennium when I rather liked a flowery shirt in Marks and Spencer. Yes, really.

Perhaps, like Joseph Piercy, in his new book Are You Turning Into Your Dad?, it was when you found yourself relaxing in tartan slippers. Many will recognise his description of the paternal Special Armchair, which should be “as conspicuous as possible and belligerently refuse to fit in with any other furniture in the house”. My dad’s was red, faded to pink, with patched arms, and stuffing falling out.

Trouble is, it’s hard for me to know if I am turning into my father, for he died when I was 16. Thirty-six years on, what memories I have of him are fading. There was that visit to the Barras, Glasgow’s famous shopping centre, when I was five, and reaching up to hold his hand. He had a fag in it. I got a candy floss.

And there was the football. He was a Rangers fan as a boy, but hated the sectarianism. He took me to the odd Celtic game instead. We watched them play Ujpest Dozsa on my ninth birthday; as a special treat, we even took a taxi.

Then there were the cars, all bangers. The A35 (“wee Speedy”), the Anglia with rusted wings, and the VW Variant which broke down irretrievably on the way to Cornwall just after he bought it. He never had much luck, Dad.

He was called John too – funny, but irascible. My mum said it was the diabetes, but I doubt it. For I find my fuse shortening with the years, and sense my own kids tensing up in the car as I did with him when we hit traffic.

He was terrible at DIY. We had several old-fashioned storage heaters, and, when we moved house, he insisted on dismantling and re-assembling them himself. He was left with six bricks over. He made me shelves just after I started secondary school. He told me he had finished. I put books on them. The shelves crashed to the floor. He went tonto.

My fear is less that I’ll turn into my dad – though he was a good guy – and more that my own son, now 18, will turn into me. Once, I was more like him. Not the good-looking bit, I’ll grant you. Nor the charm, good humour or popularity. It’s the sunny confidence he has that I miss the most – the attitude that worry is pointless and everything will turn out fine. But then I lost that the day I became his dad.

My father – like me, unable even to change a plug – would have laughed to hear of his grandson’s ambitions. Billy wants to be a mechanical engineer. Where, in heaven’s name, did that come from?