How do you remember all their names?

WHEN life was normal, I worked regularly in Mainland China, spending several weeks lecturing there annually. Being a nursing academic, my audience was mainly female.

Few things gave me more pleasure, especially if my wife was with me, than to introduce myself by presenting a PowerPoint slide of eight young adults—four men and four women—and then to tell them: ‘this is my family’. In a country where family size is limited, and especially in the days of the disastrous one child policy, where everyone’s greatest desire was to have a large family, the gasps of astonishment, even turning on occasion to applause, were very moving. If my wife was present, I completed the introduction by telling them: ‘I have eight children…and one wife’ and then pointed her out. I could then proceed to lecture them on any topic under the sun; nobody was listening to me. All eyes were, enviously, on my wife who was then inundated afterwards for photographs. It is remarkably easy to be a celebrity in China.

I would never dream of showing the same slide in Britain. I never deny the fact that I have a large family. But I do wait until I am asked, and it is fair to say that the reaction to ‘eight children’ is more muted. In a country where serial relationships and children being born out of wedlock are common, my addition of: ‘and one wife’ is more of a clarification for the curious. And, from: ‘no television then?’ to: ‘haven’t you heard about contraception?’, I have heard them all. These are almost knee-jerk reactions but on occasions it is harsher such as Malthusian insinuations that I don’t ‘care about the planet’ or outright pity as in: ‘how on earth do you manage?’ My wife sometimes had worse comments when she was struggling with a double buggy and a couple of other children in tow. From people who cannot imagine not having two gas guzzlers in the drive or an annual holiday at their time share in Marbella the notion of such a large family simply horrifies them.

We are now comfortably off as I have had an excellent job which has been accompanied by plenty of international travel for me and various contingents of my family at other people’s expense. But it wasn’t always like that. A series of tied accommodation apartments and a house at The University of Edinburgh where, in addition to getting my academic career off the ground—and keeping it there—I worked as a warden in the halls of residence. We had to buy a car which was big enough to transport the tribe to school but which we could not really afford. All holidays were spent in the Highlands of Scotland under canvas with rain and midges to keep us occupied and I recall Christmas presents from charity shops and second-hand bicycles. When I eventually got my first chair at the University of Hull, we had to buy a large house which stretched our budget to the absolute limit.

This largely set the tone of most of the early years of our family life, especially for the older children. Looking enviously at the lunch boxes of other children at school, they recall tasteless yoghurts, potato crisps without brand names, anonymous chocolate biscuits and generic ‘Cola’. This is now a running joke at family gatherings and one of my sons recalls on the morning after a sleepover at a friend’s house being asked what type of breakfast cereal he would like. His response: ‘you mean there is more than one kind?’ says everything.

I was an only child, something that I would never inflict on anyone, and my wife came from a broken family. We did not set out to have such a large family, but out Catholic faith undoubtedly played a part in having one. We were determined to establish a stable home for however many children we produced. As often stated, there are no qualifications for child-rearing, but one thing is clear and that is that child-rearing is a woman’s job and the reason is, simply, that they are much better at it. Never once in our married life, when the children were at home did any one of them ever open the front door and ask: ‘is Dad at home?’ It was always, and still is, ‘where’s Mum?’ or ‘is Mum home?’ I have seen the same thing in other families.

Most of my interactions with the children were done briefly and often at high volume. I could hide behind the excuse that I was busy providing for the family. I was, often working well over 60 hours weekly. But the truth is, I was hopeless at it, and I think many men are. Of course, I came into my own in later years with the ones who went to university advising on essays and research projects. But it does not compensate for the fact that I never had time to help them with their school homework. I could have but I never took the time, so distracted was I by my work and professional responsibilities.

We are often asked when we tell people about our family: ‘Do they all get on?’. The short answer is: ‘No, they don’t’ to which I feel like adding: ‘Why should they—they are all different?’ We have a full and diverse spectrum of achievement in our family which includes an unqualified factory worker and a Major in the British Army. We have a published author, the manager of an elite gym and one running a property portfolio. One is an Advanced Critical Care Practitioner, and another has been instrumental in getting a start-up company off the ground. Our youngest daughter is a dancer. Three children have served in the armed forces and two served tours in Afghanistan. One was at the forefront of Hull’s response to the Covid pandemic and two have been involved in Covid testing. The rest have kept the wheels of industry turning and two have promoted health and fitness through their online platforms. Two were involved directly in commercial distribution networks over Covid Christmas. To the Malthusians and family planners I ask, ‘which ones would you have prevented from being born or, had our priorities been different, aborted?’

In terms of their personal lives, we have the full range from broken relationships to very stable families growing up in stable homes with loving parents. What strikes me about these families is that my sons and daughters are largely proving to be much better parents than we were and certainly, the men are better fathers. None of our children asked to be born and, while there was plenty motherhood, it was not all accompanied by apple pie. I guess most large families have a similar tale to tell. We unreservedly love all of them and, notwithstanding the range of professions and achievements, all are holding down jobs, paying their way and supporting their children, even the estranged ones. I am not sure how much I have taught any of them about life and how to live it. But now that they have grown up and are leading their own lives, they are teaching me about being a good parent and, especially, a better father.