{"id":601525,"date":"2026-05-24T14:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/601525\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T14:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:30:09","slug":"my-dad-was-far-from-perfect-but-i-live-by-the-advice-he-gave-me-on-his-deathbed-polly-hudson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/601525\/","title":{"rendered":"My dad was far from perfect \u2013 but I live by the advice he gave me on his deathbed | Polly Hudson"},"content":{"rendered":"

This sounds like an old-fashioned, \u201ctake my mother-in-law\u201d type joke, but is the antithesis of funny: one in five British people would swap their dad for a better model. This is according to a new survey<\/a> ahead of \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 Father\u2019s Day in the UK, which also revealed that one in three pretend they have a better relationship with their dad than they really do. Many admitted they buy Father\u2019s Day cards out of obligation rather than love, too. Oof.<\/p>\n

As a result of this research, online retailer Thortful has launched a campaign called \u201cDad\u2019s not perfect, but \u2026\u201d to challenge the stereotype of the \u201cBest Dad Ever\u201d, with a much more honest range of cards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s founder and CEO, Andy Pearce, said they provide a chance for customers to \u201cmark Father\u2019s Day in a way that reflects their actual relationship, not the one they feel they are supposed to have\u201d.<\/p>\n

While authenticity is, typically, to be applauded, and some of the options are a good compromise \u2013 \u201cDad, my therapist says thanks for all the business\u201d \u2013 others are brutal. They include \u201cHappy Father\u2019s Day to a stranger with half my DNA\u201d and \u201cFather\u2019s Day \u2013 I hope you enjoy doing nothing \u2026 you\u2019ve had plenty of practice\u201d and even the succinct, \u201cWorst Dad Ever\u201d. Surely at that point you\u2019d just save your money?<\/p>\n

Father\u2019s Day has only been a struggle for me since mine died in 2012. He wasn\u2019t perfect, but \u2026 I was very fortunate \u2013 he was a lovely, funny, caring dad and we had a great relationship. For the first few years after he was gone, that third Sunday in June when everybody else celebrated their fathers was a painful, extremely unnecessary reminder of what I\u2019d lost, but at least then I could sit it out. When I had a baby, and had to make Father\u2019s Day happen for my husband \u2013 also a lovely, funny, caring dad \u2013 it felt almost perverse.<\/p>\n

Thankfully my dad gave me lots of advice, which I live by to this day. Some talk about regrets on their deathbed, mistakes, opportunities they desperately wish they hadn\u2019t missed. On his, my dad gripped my hand, looked deep into my eyes and whispered, \u201cSet up autopay for the congestion charge.\u201d I am regularly grateful I heeded this solid gold guidance, and now avoid the hefty fine for forgetting to stump up. Other wisdom was passed down throughout my childhood. I\u2019d always heard him saying, \u201cNever trust the driver in front of you if they\u2019re wearing a hat\u201d, but it wasn\u2019t until I was old enough to take the wheel myself that I understood how accurate it was. Don\u2019t ask me why, I don\u2019t make the rules, I just observe them (unlike all drivers in hats). When someone next cuts you up, tailgates, or performs a wild manoeuvre with no warning or indication, take a proper look at them and I guarantee: chapeau.<\/p>\n

My dad also introduced the concept of items being \u201ctoo new\u201d to use for an indiscriminate amount of time after purchasing. The idea of immediately putting on a jumper you\u2019ve just bought, filling a new vase with flowers, is clearly positively indecent. You need to allow the objects to acclimatise to their new surroundings, and vice versa. This made so much sense to me I was stunned to discover it wasn\u2019t universal policy, and was openly aghast when a schoolfriend\u2019s mum served dinner on plates straight from her shopping bag. Sadly it\u2019s impossible to say whether she consequently changed her ways because, for some mysterious reason, I was never invited round again.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve inherited my dad\u2019s love of cats, potatoes and neatness. I can practically feel his blood coursing through my veins whenever I straighten a picture hanging askew, or turn a loo roll round so it\u2019s correct (flap hanging over not under), or scream at my family that if they put the bloody thing back in the place it goes they will know where it is the next time they need it. Unpopular as I may be making myself, I love that connection to him, the certainty that this is what he would have wanted.<\/p>\n

It will never not suck that my dad isn\u2019t here any more, that life, let alone Father\u2019s Day, has the audacity to carry on without him. In the early, bleakest days of grief I wondered if it really was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, because it didn\u2019t seem like it. Now, 14 years later, I feel proud, and unbelievably lucky, to know that unlike the one in five, I wouldn\u2019t have swapped my dad for anything.<\/p>\n

Polly Hudson is a freelance writer<\/p>\n

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This sounds like an old-fashioned, \u201ctake my mother-in-law\u201d type joke, but is the antithesis of funny: one in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-601525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}