Richard's dad (From Times Series)
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Dennis Signy OBE was a former wartime cub reporter on the Hendon and Finchley Times at £4-a-week and became group editor for 17 years in the late Sixties. He was a national press football writer for five decades, is author of several football books and director of Barnet FC. |
Richard's dad
1:41pm Friday 23rd May 2008
Following Barnet FC takes you to some farflung and exotic places from the old British Empire... Accrington, Cleethorpes and Rotherham to name a few.
In my previous youthful existence as 14894617 Sgt Signy, serving King and country in the Intelligence Corps on the NW Frontier, I learned to drive up the Khyber Pass.
I can assure you that seeing large trucks and buses hurtling towards you round the bends at breakneck speeds, with excitable folk hanging out of the windows or sitting on luggage racks, was far less
stressful than negotiating the M6 en route to Accrington for a weekly football fix.
I was standing outside reception at Accrington Stanley FC recently when I spotted a well-known face from an ITV soap opera across the car park.
Or was it just a lookalike? On P and O cruises over the years we have found a ratio of one celebrity to four lookalikes. Seeing Dr Harold Shipman at an adjoining table in the restaurant on the
Aurora, or walking round the deck, was traumatic even though we knew he was banged up elsewhere.
When this well known face walked past I followed into the VIP bar. "Are you who I think you are, or are you a lookalike?" I asked. He acknowledged that he was, in fact, actor Sean Wilson, who played
the role of Martin Platt in Coronation Street when our younger son Richard was the director.
"I am Richard Signy's father", I announced and we exchanged pleasantries before we went our separate ways, he to the morbid pleasure of watching Accington and me to a heartwarming 2-0 Barnet victory
that made the M6 a mite less excruciating on the return journey.
It was then that the enormity of what I had said hit me. "I am Richard Signy's father" - not Dennis Signy, my own man through years of misogony,chauvinism, parenthood and the exacting role of Father
of the Bride four times, not the controversial newspaper editor, author, or friend of Margaret Thatcher who enjoyed, Frank Sinatra-style "doing it my way".
Now when I look in the mirror do I see the real McCoy or just a reflection of someone's father? Will the lads at Colindale police station greet me with: "Is that you, Den, or are you Richard's Dad?"
Traumatic? I should say so.
On the last day of the football season we travelled to play Rotherham United and there, doing a promotion, was celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. My youngest daughter Kathryn has organised special events
for him in recent years.
The first inclination was to introduce myself as Kathryn's Dad, but I bit my tongue. After all, she has a different surname now she is married with two kids. In any case,once bitten, twice shy.
Richard, currently directing scenes for The Bill at Tilbury Docks(now there's an outpost!) reckons this is just a mid-life crisis. No. However optimistic I may be about mortality I don't envisage
living until I am 164!
