on a school fancy-dress day I’m not
entirely sure what he was dressed up as
but I suspect it was a good excuse to
bring his pet parrot into school and
cause a little bit of chaos so I just
want to share a little bit of lenss
story with you to begin with Len had a
happy childhood he grew up in Hampshire
but as a young man war broke out and age
21 he signed up to the Merchant Navy as
an electrician he travelled the world
obviously not in ideal circumstances but
the silver lining was that along the way
he met Barbara they fell in love and
during a period of leave during the war
they got married then happily survived
the war and when he got back he and
Barbara had two kids we got Steve there
on the motorbike he was born in 1947 and
a few years later his brother Bill came
along sadly though soon after this photo
was taken and Barbara was diagnosed with
a degenerative illness things went
downhill fairly quickly and about a year
off this photos taken she passed away he
left Len as a single dad to two grieving
young boys needing to strike the balance
of winning the bread with also bringing
them up this was the 1950s and the role
of child care was simply not the man’s
responsibility and particularly not an
electrician of limited means living on a
council estate Len faced some strong
pressure from society from friends from
Family to the ship the boys off to
boarding school or to farm them off to
other members of the family but he made
the bold decision and in some ways the
remarkable decision that the best thing
that he could do for them was with the
love and support people around him
raised them himself and that’s exactly
what he did here’s the three of them
away on holiday and as they grew older
Steve was able to take more
responsibility for his younger brother
and in effect they grew up as three
brothers with an incredibly strong bond
Len was a remarkable man I need to do
great job with them you may have guests
but Len is my granddad and Steve is my
dad and that’s me in the middle as you
probably recognize and I’ve been
fortunate to have incredible fathering
role models in my own life
so Steve my dad has caught on so much of
that stuff from his dad the love the
care the attention he’s always been
there for me I’ve learnt so so much from
them and I feel incredibly fortunate
fast forward to 2014 and it’s my turn to
become a dad so this is me and my wife
on the day that my son was born when I
wrote this talk I wrote this is the
happiest proudest day of my life which
it still is but it’s now the joint
because as of Monday
my wife had a little baby daughter so
it’s now thanks I didn’t actually do
and this is us on the day he was born it
was an amazing day we had him at home
this is yeah so we see on tonight
remember this moment feeling over one
with love with joy with relief my wife
had been in labor for nearly two days it
would been so intense but we’d got there
and our son was born a couple of minutes
or a few minutes after this photo was
taken the Midwife had to give my wife a
couple of stitches my son got passed to
me as I was a holding myself for the
first time and I remember looking down
at him and just it was incredible
the Midwife said you can put a nappy on
him and I thought yeah I’ve done a nappy
before this is going to be okay I can do
that so I managed to just about get the
nappy on I put it all through and
managed to put that together and he said
I was gonna get cold you know before too
long so we should wrap him up he put
baby grow on him yeah yeah I think so so
took the baby grow and literally I
couldn’t do it it was like this
unfathomable puzzle someone had given me
and I was putting his legs where the
arms go and the arms where the legs go
and the head was in the wrong place and
all that stuff and I don’t know if the
sleep deprivation of what I just
couldn’t do it
the Midwife came across with a nice
knowing look and said do you want some
help with that I can I can help you with
that and she put the baby groan my son
showed me how to do it put it on hand
him back to me and that was the first
moment in my parenting life about half
an hour in where I realized I really
really didn’t know some of the stuff
that I needed to know that happens to me
on a regular basis as a parent but that
was the first moment things were however
about to get a little bit worse kind of
very shortly after that with my notice
some irregularities in my son’s
breathing and my wife also collapsed a
couple of times for good measure
we were blue lights Hospital an
ambulance rushed down there I remember
walking my wife was in a stretcher I
walked down through these corridors
fired a doctor put my son on a table an
army of consultants and doctors came
around him with tubes wires pipes all
sorts putting things down his throat and
I just stood back there my wife was
wheeled in a couple of minutes later
semi-conscious and you know I was in
deep here I didn’t know what was
happening I was scared and yeah
basically and my son did have a problem
happily everything was sort of sorted
out that this is the next
is my wife in a luxury hospital padded
wheelchair my son in intensive care but
those first few days of parenthood it
was all on me and really because my wife
is somewhere I had to do a lot of stuff
I didn’t know when we’re in the hospital
we received the most incredible care and
attention and they showed me how to put
on a baby grow which I happily learned
they also showed me how to do everything
that I could possibly know burping
bathing how to feed how to support my
work with breastfeeding it was
incredible and after a few days my son
game came down from intensive care up to
hold him again which was lovely and but
I’d learnt so much from these midwives
and I basically thought wouldn’t it be
amazing if everyone every dad every
parent had the opportunity to learn this
stuff because no one teaches it to you I
like kind of pop I thought you know I
was fairly busy with other things and
didn’t know if I’d ever come back to it
never really thought I would we left
hospital after about a week and this is
me with my son more recently in happy
parenting Mohit in a good moment and
I’ve got to say I’ve had just an amazing
set of circumstances that have allowed
me to be the kind of dad that I’d like
to be so I had a community of peers
around me who I could lean on and look
for to for support dads around me who
were kind of a head down the path who
had been there and done it who I could
ask questions of and who could grow with
me and helped me grow as a parent I’d
had this input and teaching that I
talked about and also had the
opportunity in the time to grow skills
and confidence and kind of grow into
that role as a dad now along the way I
also met I’ve met a number of dads who
didn’t have this stuff or one of these
things were a number of these things
perhaps they’re struggling with their
confidence perhaps they don’t have those
skills perhaps they’ve got a difficult
relationship perhaps they haven’t got a
support network or the role models like
I was fortunate enough to have was
struggling in all kinds of ways I also
met dads who had been let down kind of
by the system so to speak so I remember
meeting one day when we were in hospital
he’d been through a long labor with his
wife as well and she’d end up having a
c-section and he basically about a few
hours after his daughter was born
haven’t been through a super-intense
experience he was sent home from the
hospital because it wasn’t visiting
hours and he wasn’t allowed to stay
there so after
this time when he should be building
bonds with his family she’ll be making
lifelong memories he was off in this
flat on his own and the message that you
got wasn’t needed he wasn’t important
now the maternity departments would love
it to be different of course they have
limited resources but there’s so many
stories of that of dads getting those
kind of wrong messages you know daddy
day care all that stuff those messages
really get through so there was there
was the societal stuff there was the
kind of dads I’d met and then I started
digging into some statistics and I found
actually the statistics really bear this
out so men who are more involved in
their child’s life their partner is much
more likely to have a better career have
better mental health and well-being and
is less likely to be discriminated
against when it comes to pay which is
all great stuff equally the kids if a
kid has a dad they’re much more likely
to in effect get on better in life so
children who grow up fatherless and much
more likely to have behavioral
difficulties they’re much more likely to
have emotional emotional difficulties
later in life all the stuff that comes
with that as well of course more likely
to commit crime more likely to drop out
of school early all that list and that’s
totally borne out in my experience so I
used to be youth worker I’ve met
countless children and young people from
Brighton who have suffered because of
poor or absent parents and if I’m honest
particularly dads have been kind of
guilty of that so we invest all this
money in in kind of trying to remedy the
effects of poor parenting but how much
do we actually invest in the parents
themselves especially in those crucial
early days and finally I realized it
would also have a super positive effect
on the men to do this stuff I read a
survey over half of men feel completely
unprepared for fatherhood that’s a real
statistic over half of men feel
completely unprepared for fatherhood
that seems incredible to me so I felt I
had to do something and the thing that I
did was the dad course so the dad course
is very simple it’s not complex what we
do is we bring dads to be together to
prepare for fatherhood we meet in a pub
because that seemed like the right thing
to do it’s a relaxed positive space it’s
a familiar space and the whole idea is
it’s that normalizing thing again it’s a
place where men can just be themselves
they don’t have to pretend they don’t
have to be perfect they don’t have to be
that strong figure that so many men feel
they should be they can just be honest
and upfront one of our core values is to
be totally bs free so they’re not
allowed to pretend they have to be who
they are and we get all kinds of
interesting conversations coming up
around that around the questions that
they get and around who they actually
are as men and as dads we also bring
along experienced dads who have been
there and done it to come and share
their stories and talk about their
experiences of being a dad themselves so
that will talk about their transition
into Parenthood how they found the birth
what’s been good what’s been hard all
that stuff and I remember one day Limit
iki coming and talked about his
relationship with his partner how much
they were struggling how tired they both
were how they weren’t having sex anymore
never have any fun and they were really
having a hard time and one of the guys
who came on that course came and spoke
to me a few months they were having a
chat and he said you know what some of
the stuff he said was really helpful
some of the tips about what I done
different he was great but above all it
was just so good to know that I wasn’t
alone in that and that I was connected
to someone else in that and we also do
really really practical stuff so all
that stuff that I learn at the hospital
we do that together hopefully everything
that a guy would want to know will cover
so that all the nappy stuff the clothing
stuff and tons more how to be supportive
at the birth how to look after your
partner where how to look after yourself
as a dad where we do all of that stuff
so it’s been so far it’s been a success
I’m happy to say we started our first
course in January so it’s still early
days but I feel like there’s incredible
potential but what we’re doing in
Brighton is I think is actually just
scratching the need of much deeper and a
much wider need for dads hardly anyone
is working with dads and virtually no
one is working with dads to be and
there’s a massive gap to be filled there
and like I say I think it can have a
hugely positive impact on not just the
dads not just the partners but also the
children so the number of dads have
approached me said I wish that’s
something that I’d had when I was a dad
myself it’s not something I particularly
initiated or sort out but already we’re
having conversations about running
the course in London in Oxford
Southampton and little Hampton so it
seems like a little bit of momentum is
happening there which is very exciting
there’s also the potential to maybe do
some stuff online or I know that for me
as a dad I’m far from the perfect dad I
still need support I still need people
to lean on shoulders to cry on question
people to ask questions of so maybe
we’ll do something for people who are
already dads as well but to take it kind
of all the way back to my granddad and
where we started my grandeur basically
had a choice to make he was forced into
it by his circumstances he could either
step up get involved get his hands dirty
or he could listen to all the reasons
not to all the societal pressures all
the difficulties that he was facing but
he decided to go for it and actually I
don’t know what kind of impact it would
have had on my dad and I’m his brother
had my granddad decided not to do that
they could easily have become one of
those statistics that I mentioned
earlier on but they haven’t and that’s
had a huge positive effect on me and my
siblings and hopefully on my children
too I think that the dad course and this
idea of helping them prepare for
fatherhood I want it to be for everyone
so we’ve had all kinds of dads coming
along you think you know professionals
we’ve had people from all different
backgrounds we’ve had people from maybe
more traditionally poorer backgrounds
but I’m so so keen that this is
something that could be for everyone
one example of that a 15 year old boy
from Brighton recently got in touch of
me he wasn’t able to make our course for
various reasons but he basically said
I’m becoming a dad my girlfriend’s
pregnant I’m up for it which i think is
amazing but I just need someone to help
me I don’t know how to hold a baby and
for me as I you know wow this is exactly
the kind of people we want to be helping
we want to help everyone we don’t just
want this to be a privileged
middle-class opportunity I think there
could be a profound impact if all dads
did this stuff so I want to finish by
sharing a little thought there’s been
lots of interesting quotes today and
I’ve got one from Tolstoy classic dad
stuff everyone thinks about changing the
world but very few people think about
changing themselves and I think it’s is
easy to believe that societal change
only happens at this high up top level
which very few of us will ever see
and very few of us will ever access and
it makes us feel powerless now
occasionally I think that’s true but I
think on the whole real change and real
long-term sustainable change that isn’t
just temporary but lasts it doesn’t
happen in that way I think happens in
small quiet little places where we don’t
always see and for me that’s what makes
a dark horse exciting it’s not big it’s
not fancy it’s not something I’ve set
out to make huge it’s just a group of
guys sitting in a quiet pub side room
talking about that journey into
fatherhood being upfront real and honest
and preparing themselves for what is I
believe the most significant thing
they’ll ever do my dream my vision my
hope is that we’re able to offer this
opportunity to all dads I think the
impact could be totally profound and all
those little changes added together
could have a huge impact not just on the
dads not just on the mums but on
children for generations to come
thanks [Applause]