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My dad is one in a million. You can't take him anywhere. If you took him to somewhere like America, you'd be guaranteed that he'd find someone to talk to.

He's just one of those people that'll talk to anybody and everybody.

He takes just over an hour to go to the local village shop - just across the road from my house.

I suppose you could call him a people person.

He's also a bit of a practical joker.

One Christmas he hung a ring box on the Christmas tree, about a week before Christmas day. For the whole week he was getting treated like royalty from my mum: breakfast in bed, all the chores done for him.

I'm sure you can imagine the look on my mum's face when she opened it to find it was nothing more than a thimble and not the massive rock on the ring she'd imagined. My mum didn't speak to him for about a month - it was the quietest Christmas we've ever had!

He's a typical man. My mum was going to the theatre last year to see her heart-throb - David Essex, and in a bid to impress him and cover the grey hairs, asked my dad to dye her hair.

Like all men, he disregarded the instructions and dived headfirst into the job. She was horrified when it turned orange. I don't think David noticed.

My dad is one in a million. He's the backbone of my family and I love him very much.