Oh no, Old Weepie Hesp is at it again ...

WHEN I was a lad, old men rode big black heavy cycles and they wore cloth-caps, waistcoats (pronounced “wescotts”) and metal bicycle clips to keep their trousers safe from the oily chain. They tended to have bad breath, which they countered with extrastrong mints and they knew how to stand to attention, salute and also how to keep working hard even if all that meant was tending a tiny front garden. What I cannot recall is if they cried easily.

Maybe they did and just hid it well. Or perhaps it’s just a few weakish old geezers like me who find tears easy to come by.

I only ever saw my grandfather weep once, and that was when we were burying his wife, my grandmother, and he tried to jump into the grave as she was lowered in.

None of which is a particularly upbeat way of saying that I cried the other day – and the tears flowed even though I was feeling the opposite of sadness or despair. They were tears of joy and … Well, just pure emotion. And, rather embarrassingly, it happened in a very manly moment.

There were just two of us in the room – me and my daughter’s partner. He’s a busy chap, so I was a little surprised that he turned up on a weekday lunchtime when I was working in my home office. Of course, I instantly made him a cup of tea and asked if he’d like anything to eat – and we stood there in the kitchen chatting for 20 minutes about Six Nations rugby and other manly stuff.

Eventually, though, the conversation fell a little silent, and he looked at me and said: “Martin, what I really came here for is to seek your permission to ask your daughter for her hand in marriage.”

You could have knocked me down with the proverbial… Not so much because it was out of the blue. They have a child (our grandson Sonny) and they own a house together. It was just – for me at any rate – a rather beautiful and moving moment. Sort of old-fashioned, gentlemanly, respectful, meaningful… All of those things and more.

I immediately gave him the whole thumbs up thing – and then started to say something about how grateful I was that he’d taken the trouble to the red card which denoted first prize.

As for the Women’s Institute Craft Fayre, my entries were invariably showered with rewards, though I always managed to be in the toilet when the prizes were presented. Please, no paparazzi!

I once heard two women in floral frocks and big hats arguing over my award-winning brass rubbings. One opined that the quality was so high I must have cheated, while the other vociferously declared I would never stoop to fraud as I was “such a nice little boy”. come and ask me. But suddenly the words wouldn’t come out and I found myself welling up and the tears started to flow.

All I could do then, in those awkward seconds (awkward because men don’t do bare emotions well and I had no place to hide) – was stride across the kitchen and embrace my future son-in-law in what nowadays is called a “manhug”.

Dear chap, He was very good about it all. I think I’m right in saying that some might regard him as a bit of a man’s man – a burly, bearded, rugby player and a bright, talented, hard-working carpenter. When we meet we tend to talk about just blokes’ stuff – but maybe that’s my fault, I don’t know. Goodness knows what he made of his silly old future

How you fake a brass rubbing I have no idea. However, 65 years later I think it is now safe to admit that in the heady world of children’s art competitions I was not above a modicum of rule-bending.

Older readers will remember the I-Spy column in the Daily Mail. Youngsters would send in details of interesting things they had spotted, accompanied by a sketch. These were judged by a mythical figure known as Big Chief I-Spy, the winners being displayed in the paper.

At the suggestion of my dad, I decided to tell the world about the father-in-law welling up in tears.

I sometimes wonder if he doesn’t think both Nancy’s parents are bonkers. The first time he met my wife, she was so nervous about Nancy bringing home a boyfriend she found herself quoting some Edward Lear nonsense poem. In the very first moments she met him! That he didn’t turn on his heels there and then, I think says a lot about him and his good nature.

Anyway, a few days after gaining Old Weepie Hesp’s permission, he did pop the big question in a very nice and romantic way. He secretly dressed Sonny in a T-shirt that said something along the lines of ‘Mummy, please marry Daddy’, then suggested they walk up from their house to Nancy’s favourite panoramic viewpoint – indeed, the very place where Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander is said to have penned the hymn, All Things Bright and Beautiful. He then unzipped Sonny’s jacket to reveal the said T-shirt, and got down on one knee.

It doesn’t get much better than that. Needless to say, my daughter is a very, very happy young woman. In fact, she’s just been around to our place showing us pictures of the wedding dress.

So… a good-news story. I recalled in a column recently how an old editor had told me to keep things light and cheerful when writing for the weekend paper, and I trust I’ve obeyed his edict this week. I only wish my mum had been around to hear the tale – but, as I also said in that recent column, maybe they see the newspapers up in heaven, in which case she can shed some kind of angel tear up there.

However, I’d still like an answer to the original question.

Did old men used to cry? Or did they just struggle like hell trying to hide it when they did?

It was probably a case of the latter – unless I really am some old freak of a softie who is steadily losing the plot. You have no choice when it comes to the waterworks. Tears will flow as and when they want to. The trouble is that we male dinosaurs are programmed to think it’s wrong or unmanly in some way.

If they made bicycle clips for tearducts, we’d wear them.

Suddenly the words wouldn’t come out and I found myself welling up and the tears started to flow