What happens when you only know your dad when you’re a young boy and then, one day, when you are middle-aged, he phones to say he’d like to see you again before he dies?
In the space of one year, Ian Clayton makes a voyage around China, America and his father to ponder the familiar questions: Is blood thicker than water? Does it matter who teaches us so long as we learn? How do we let go of something that we never really had in the first place?
With characteristic storytelling, wit and good humour, Ian Clayton reflects on a lifelong search for a father figure, skipping across the generations to weave a tale of how we relate, what we do with what we’ve got and what happens when some things just don’t work out the way we want them to.
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Ian Clayton has an unshakeable belief in the power of stories to bring people together, coming as he does from that great tradition of storytellers that includes the likes of Stan Barstow, Alan Sillitoe and his hero Barry Hines. Song For My Father reverberates with warmth, humour and joy and it’s a story people can relate to.
Another humble masterpiece from our finest accidental social historian. Ian Clayton writes with such natural warmth, humour, joyous attention to detail, and – above all – humanity, that I, as a lesser writer, ought to chuck my laptop in the bin.
Song For My Father breaks your heart then puts it back together, often with the kindness of strangers. Clayton unearths the poetry of the everyday and his journey makes us re-evaluate our own. A rare thing, a book that makes us laugh, cry and question.
This is a song for four generations of fathers, mothers and the whole tapestry of humanity in a small mining town in the North of England; a kaleidoscope of characters which are brilliantly illuminated as Ian searches for a true perception of why we are what we are. I envy his talent.
A moving story of reconnection… littered with laugh out loud quips.
A feature in the Guardian on how Ian Clayton recconected with his father after many years estranged.
In this extract from Song For My Father, Ian Clayton shares the abiding memory of his eccentric father from his childhood.
I have an abiding image of my dad. I am nine. We are sitting on a bench at Wakefield Kirkgate railway station. My mother walked out of our house the day before. My dad has decided to look for her and bring her home. His exact words to me before we came to this station were, ‘We’re going to form a posse, lad, lasso your mam and bring her back.’ We sit side by side, not looking at one another. We munch on corned beef sandwiches wrapped in tin foil. My dad has cut his finger opening the tin and he has a piece of rag wrapped round it fastened on with Sellotape. A porter trudges past with a sack barrow full of suitcases, all bearing neatly-written address labels. People get off trains and get on them. My dad stares into space and then looks up at the sky. I sense this and follow his gaze. High up, a little aeroplane moves across the blue leaving a vapour trail that is sharp at first and then thickens until it starts to disappear. I watch the aeroplane until it goes out of my frame of vision. My dad starts to sing a Box Tops song. ‘Give me a ticket for an aeroplane; I ain’t got time to catch the fast train.’ His singing is a peculiar mixture of West Riding Yorkshire and what he thinks is an American accent. I look at my dad, he doesn’t look back, just carries on singing and humming when he can’t remember the words.
‘Are you singing because you are sad?’
He says nothing and still doesn’t turn to look at me.
‘Are you happy then?’
He carries on singing and humming and looking up at the sky.
Another little aeroplane comes into view.
I want to ask my dad all sorts of questions, but I know I won’t get an answer. I crumble up the crust of my sandwich and throw pieces of it to some pigeons that have flown down from under the canopy that is over the platform. And that’s where this image fades. Over many years I have tried and better tried to recall, but I can’t remember what happens next.
My mother used to keep photographs in a shoebox in the cupboard in our sideboard. One day she pulled out every photograph that had my dad on it and started to cut round him with a pair of small scissors. She didn’t stop to look at the shape she had cut out, just threw it straight onto the fire. We have photographs that were once family groups that show three boys with identical fringes, a mother looking over us and a hole where our dad used to be. We have seaside donkeys missing a rider and a wedding photograph that shows a young woman outside St. Thomas’ Church with part of her arm missing and a hole to one side of her. All that’s left is a piece of my dad’s lapel and half a carnation. My dad went missing a long time before he started disappearing.
Ian Clayton is an author, broadcaster and storyteller from Featherstone, West Yorkshire. His stories are about making sense of where we come from. His books include Bringing It All Back Home, a bestselling book about music; Song For My Father about his lifelong search for a father figure; Our Billie about loss; It’s The Beer Talking, about adventures in public houses; In Search of Plainsong tells the full story of the original 1972 incarnation of the folk-rock group and their debut album In Search of Amelia Earhart. He co-wrote Iain Matthews’s memoir Thro’ My Eyes and Anne Scargill & Betty Cook's memoir Anne & Betty.
Books: Bringing It All Back Home, Song For My Father, It’s The Beer Talking, In Search of Plainsong
Co-author: Thro’ My Eyes: A Memoir, Anne & Betty.
Ian’s website: ianclaytoninfo.wordpress.com
Shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize When you hear a certain song, where does it take you? What is the secret that connects music to our lives? Heart warming, moving and laugh out loud funny, Bringing It All Back Home is the truest book you will ever read about music and the things that really matter. Author Ian Clayton listens to music as a kid to e..
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Winner of The British Guild of Beer Writers Award for Best Writer about Pubs Where do we go to meet old friends? What is our first port of call when we want to show new mates something that speaks about our identity? The pub of course, or better still our local. Author Ian Clayton embarked on a lifelong love affair with local pubs in the middle of the ..
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