Hence the timing of this story, published by Telegraph Cruise, about a cruise around the Norwegian fjords to Bergen last summer.
It was a rare moment of calm and a chance for myself and my father [pictured above] to spend some time together away from the routines of daily life.
Here’s an extract from the story:
The calm of fjord cruising and yoga sessions started to pay off and I was breathing more deeply.
My father, Christopher, meanwhile, was enjoying the unhurried routine of morning mooching on deck and afternoon talks in the theatre.
It can be hard for elderly men travelling alone to make new friends and, while he never says so, I’m sure he must feel lonely without my mother by his side after some 40 years of marriage.
Fred Olsen sets aside tables for lone travellers to meet up at mealtimes and I encouraged him to join in some of the daily activities, such as bridge or a bowls game, to meet other similar people on board.
The second has hints of honey and balsamic vinegar. The third packs a punch of spiced gingerbread.
We tuck in as Marc Desarmenien, General Manager of Fallot, explains the favourable combination of terroir, natural resources and climate.
We’re in Burgundy, the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay-producing heart of France’s wine trade, but we’re not talking vin with Monsieur Desarmenien. This tasting is dedicated to Burgundy’s other world-beater: mustard.
“As a moutardier, I’m looking for a rich-yellow hue and a strong, not spicy, taste.”
“A winemaker seeks subtlety but I’m more concerned with the combination of flavours,” explains Marc, offering more canapés to dip into the coloured pools of mustard daubed artistically on the plate like Picasso’s palette.
Marc’s grandfather founded the Fallot mustard mill in 1928 and it now produces some 85,000 tones of mustard per year. It is the only one left of 30 mills from Burgundy’s mustard-producing salad days.
But Marc is sanguine. The honey and balsamic vinegar blend recently won them a contract with Waitrose.
“Mustard has a 3,000-year history from China to Burgundy,” explains Marc, taking us on a guided tour, first an interactive romp through the history of mustard in France, then a high-tech factory visit with graphics explaining the science of preparing the wild mustard seed.
“Mustard is mystical and medicinal. It was even used in Britain in Victorian times as a tonic.”
Weekend escape
Mustard, wine and curative properties are to feature heavily on the agenda for the weekend.
I’m here with my 71-year-old father to celebrate both his birthday and 100 years of Father’s Day in the UK this June.
France caught up with the event in 1952. It’s over 15 years since dad last time dad took a holiday and it was 1947 when he was last in Burgundy, still wearing short trousers.
But why Burgundy for a dad-doting weekend? Simple.
Dukes, vineyards, museums, gingerbread, churches and lashings of mustard, plus five hours from St Pancras by Eurostar and TGV with a short metro hop across Paris in between.
No queues, no hassle and definitely no volcanic ash-inspired delays. It’s perfect for father-son bonding trip.
Room with a view
We start our visit in the wine town of Beaune, indulging dad’s interest in heritage with a guided tour in English of the 15th-century Hotel-Dieu.
Built by Nicolas Rolin, one of the Dukes of Burgundy, as a perceived way to fast track a place in Heaven, the lavishly designed hospice has been a place of healing since the Middle Ages.
Part of the complex is still a working retirement home today. Dad is already eyeing up one of the rooms with shuttered windows set among the flower-strewn garden.
Less appealing, however, is collection of ceramic jars of traditional cures in the old pharmacy. That’s a paste of herbs, snake skin and opium, a dose of which was traditionally given to every new arrival.
After a simple but satisfying lunch of ham terrine, beef tongue and crème caramel at a homely local bistro, plus the obligatory glass of something fruity and fragrant, we make our way through the historic, cobbled streets of Beaune to Sensation Vin, a wine cellar-cum-classroom.
Tasting session
The owners left the wine trade some four years ago to set up a cellar where anyone with an interest in Burgundy wine, but a low threshold of knowledge, can call in for a one-hour crash course in wine appreciation. It includes a blind tasting of six local wines. Co-owner Celine Dandelot explains:
“People are afraid of stuffy tastings at local wine cellars. It can be intimidating, so we try to demystify the process.”
Dad and I take our seats at a lightbox-style tasting table and watch the introductory briefing on the wall-mounted TV as Celine uncorks the bottles.
The five wine-producing regions of Burgundy, we learn, produce 200m bottles of wine per year, one third red, two thirds white. These are split into four categories: grand cru, premier cru, village and region.
“We simply look at colour, smell and taste, repeating the same three tests for each of the six wines,” explains Celine. “You can tell the age of a wine form its colour and its aroma. By tasting, we identify its characteristics.”
Sure enough, after just a few minutes, we are plotting the wines on a Venn diagram, ranging from young wines with a floral nose and high acidity to mature wines with cooked-fruit aromas and higher levels of tannins.
Best of all, the relaxed, speak-your-mind ambiance takes the stiltedness out of the tasting.
A summer breeze is gently ruffling the sun-basking landscape as we head north to Dijon later that day, following the Route des Grands Crus that cuts a grape-growing swathe through the heart of the Cotes de Nuits slopes.
As we trundle along country lanes, regimented battalions of vines stand to attention. Isolated, stone worksheds spring out from the hillsides against a thousand-acre sky.
Plots of land, demarcated by weather-aged walls, are interspersed by proud stone crosses, keeping sentry duty by the roadside.
Lazy morning
After a hearty dinner and a good night’s sleep in the newly restyled fifth-floor rooms at Dijon’s Hotel La Cloche, we set out the next morning to explore the city, catching the free, city-circling shuttle bus to the stately main square, Place de la Liberation, with its pavement cafés and dancing fountains.
The morning is spent leisurely, weaving through historic passageways, marveling at the produce for sale at the traditional covered market and stopping for an espresso boost and some people watching.
There’s time for souvenir hunting too: traditional Burgundy gingerbread biscuits from the Rose de Vergy patisserie and a dainty, ceramic mustard pot from Boutique Maille, Dijon’s celebrated shrine to mustard.
Dad has loved the good food and wine, the sense of heritage and gentle mooching around one of France’s most attractive regions, not to mention sampling his own body weight in mustard.
And I’ve enjoyed sharing it with him. We don’t need to wait until the next father’s day for another generation-spanning weekend away.
Besides, dads do a hard job us and they deserve their moments in the sun too.
* This article was first published in the Daily Mail in 2010.
All fathers want to see their children open their presents on Christmas morning.
But thousands of dads across the UK will miss that moment this year.
A friend of mine, Richard, is one.
Having split from his partner earlier this year, he will spend Christmas day alone “drinking too much red wine and watching movies on Sky” before collecting his young children from their mother to spend New Year’s Eve with them at his place.
He talks about “just wanting to just get through it this year” but he’s not alone. From the divorced to the bereaved via fathers working away from home, thousands of men will miss that Christmas-presents morning this year.
National shame
According to a recent online survey by Samaritans, some 45 per cent of men felt sad or depressed at Christmas time; 37% of men admitted to feeling lonely, citing relationship and financial difficulties as their main sources of their anxiety.
And it’s not just older men. A separate survey, carried out for the BBC by market research company Comres, found that 18 to 24-year-olds are nearly as likely (30%) to feel lonely as those over 65 (31%).
The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt recently described the plight of the “chronically lonely” as a “national shame.”
“We have to move beyond the idea of men don’t talk, boys don’t cry,” says Joe Ferns, Executive Director of Policy, Research & Development at Samaritans. The organisation received 244,000 calls during the Christmas period last year and volunteers will man 201 UK branches over the festive period.
“We’re supposed to be modern men but, when we don’t cope, not coping becomes the biggest problem for us.”
“At Christmas,” he adds. “It’s even harder to hide from the reality of our feelings.”
Small steps
So how exactly can men get through it this year?
Peter Saddington, a Relate counsellor based in the Midlands, encourages men to reach out and take small, practical steps.
“Separated fathers could plan a Skype call for Christmas Day morning, then plan a second Christmas to make memories for your kids,” he advises.
Relate offers telephone and online counselling over Christmas, according to where you live, and increasingly advises individuals on relationship matters – not just couples trying to stay together.
“Men are just as emotional and upset about a family breakdown but, when they seek help, we often respond really well to counselling,” he adds.
“It helps them put aside the sadness aside and move forward.”
Mental health
As Christmas approaches this week, mental health professionals will be acutely aware that recent research shows male suicide rates are spiralling.
The Men’s Health Forum, a charity working to improve men’s health services, cite Department of Health figures indicating suicide is the single most common cause of death in men under 35. Of the 5,981 suicides in the UK in 2012, 4,590 cases were male according to the Office for National Statistics.
The Forum this month launched its Man MOT service, enabling men to contact an NHS GP via live text chat or email (it varies according to the day of the week).
“Men tend to put all their eggs in two baskets: work and wife.”
“Then, when a major life change comes, they haven’t nurtured the support networks that women traditional turn to,” explains Dr Luke Sullivan, a clinical psychologist involved with the project.
Dr. Sullivan is also working with the not-for-profit organisation Men’s Minds Matter to create a National Federation of Men’s Institutes to reduce isolation in men and provide a supportive environment to help men cope with challenging life events.
“Ultimately, you can close the door, hide away and think about what you’ve lost, or you can find a way to make it a bit easier, looking to the future and setting some simple goals,” he adds.
“It’s important to recognise that things will be different next year.”
Good will
I’m one of the lucky ones.
My divorce was finalised this year on the basis of a shared-parenting arrangement.
I had support during this process and I’ll pick up my daughters on Christmas Day morning this year to watch them open their presents before I cook the lunch.
I’ve invited Richard to join us.
After all, it is supposed to the season of goodwill to all men.
I thought a week cruising Norwegian fjords would do us both good and help us reconnect the father-son bond often lost amid the frenetic routine of our spin-cycle lives.
But, over the week, I realised something to my alarm: I feel my dad is drifting away.
Christopher [pictured above] recently turned 75 and is going increasingly deaf. He is slowing down yet his physical health remains generally good. But, while was never a man of many words, he now seems increasingly withdrawn into himself, sometimes lost in a world of silence.
It’s a very different experience to my mother’s premature decline, taken from us by cancer aged just 67 after several years of debilitating illness.
The changes I’m now witnessing with my father are slower and more about his interaction with the outside world, rather than any physical ailment.
Is the deafness, or loneliness after losing my mother after some 40 years of marriage? He doesn’t seem unhappy or depressed. But, then again, he probably wouldn’t tell me if he was.
I wanted to understand – not just how to help him but also how to deal with the increasing sense of loneliness I feel.
I’ve already lost one parent and now the remaining one is physically present yet emotionally withdrawn.
There are now 11m people aged 65 or over in the UK according to recent figures from Age UK, the country’s largest charity dedicated to making the most of later life. That number is expected to pass 20m by 2030.
Some 36 per cent of all people aged over 65 currently live alone and 17 per cent report less than weekly contact with family, friends and neighbours.
“Subjective responses to our surveys suggest that feelings of loneliness, isolation and withdrawal are growing, especially amongst older men,” says Mervyn Kohler, External Affairs Advisor for Age UK.
“While women have a greater propensity to keep in touch with friends and neighbours, men coming off the back of 40 years of working life often find it harder to adapt to the pace.”
Age UK traces a linear connection between isolation and deteriorating mental health. The organisation campaigns to find more imaginative ways to spark the interests of older people – especially older men.
A recent success was the Men in Sheds scheme, a pilot project in three locations around the UK to bring older men together to share and learn new skills, such as woodworking. The project has now finished at a national level but some partners still run it at a local level.
“It’s a question of self value to your family and community. Without that sense of worth, it’s a very corrosive journey,” adds Mervyn.
“The way our population is ageing is a wake-up call to find new ways forward, engaging a generation no longer prepared to just put on its cardigan and slippers.”
Independent Age, the charity acting as a voice for older people with 1,500 volunteers across the UK and Ireland, produces a series of Wise Guides, offering practical advice for older people and their families. These are free to order or download from their website.
They also operate a freephone national helpline – 800 3196789 – and offer a befriending service by phone or to the home.
“How to help depends every much on the individual situation and what they want, especially after potentially major life events, such as bereavement or health problems,” says Rosie Collingbourne, Advice Manager at Independent Age.
Practical steps the charity offers include a benefits check, getting support from social services for care needs, equipment for around the home and access to day centres to meet other people.
In an age of families living further apart and people relying increasingly on digital communication, their volunteers talk to the person to assess their particular needs.
“We offer concerned family members the same kind of advice,” adds Rosie. “Often they want to take control but you can’t get a resolution for an older person. You have to work with them.”
My father is not completely withdrawn – far from it. He still does his own shopping, volunteers at a local National Trust property and regularly phones his sister in Australia. We live close by and he regularly spends time with his granddaughters.
But I’m worried. It was little things on our holiday that rang alarm bells for me – from deliberately leaving behind his hearing aid to a general reluctance to join in activities with other people on the ship.
The fjords were beautiful and the cruise relaxing but I also set sail for home resolved to act.
It’s time to seek help, not let him drift away.
* Do you have a similar experience of caring for ageing parents? Share your view and advice below.
