When Cathy and Ian first met, Cathy was reluctant to take their relationship further. She wanted children and felt that Ian, with two grown up children of his own wasn't likely to want to start all that nappy stuff again. Ian was of the view that whatever it took would be all right, never really thinking that it would happen, "Then one day," he says, "there was a blue stick with a mark on it!"

Josie, Ian's daughter from his first marriage, and now at university had mixed feeling's about her father starting a new family, "I found it quite bizarre," she says. "I was very cagey when Cathy was pregnant. But once she'd had the baby, he was just my little brother, although it took me a long time after Cathy had had Alex to say, 'I've got two brothers.'"

Jethro, Josie's twenty-one-year-old brother found Alex's birth a strange and emotional experience, "My dad was so proud and happy," he explains, "And it was a boy! Brilliant! A new excuse to play football!"

Alex caused some confusion in the way both Josie and Jethro were seen by others. When Jethro announced to the nurses at the hospital that he was the baby's brother, it was clear they had obviously been expecting a toddler. And Josie admitted that when out with Cathy, her dad, and Alex, she felt a need to explain to people that they weren't the grandparents, and the baby wasn't hers!

Unexpectedly, it's given Josie, Jethro and Ian time to remember how they were as a young family, and how that affects their feelings are now. For the Josie, the advent of a little boy was a relief, "Dad talks to the baby how he used to talk to me," she says "I've always been my daddy's little girl and I didn't want anyone to replace that. Even if it had been a girl, it's just nice to be reminded now of how wonderful my dad was when I was growing up."

A defining moment for Ian was cradling Alex in one arm, with the telephone receiver in the other hand, as he gave advice to Josie on a university essay. "They may have left home, but you still feel responsible for them. I'd just got to the point of being responsible for myself. You forget just how all consuming children can be on your time, whatever age they are. I haven't thought that through in terms of the rerst of my life, but so what? They're the most important thing in my life, and in a way, I'm prolonging that experience."