article_snippet.sent: Our first-born, Claud, arrived in July 1997, in the early days of the Blairite terrors.
article_snippet.sent: I remember the moment vividly, as my wife looked on cluelessly —
article_snippet.sent: You see, I was the one who worked out how to fasten the darn babyseat into the front seat of us elderly Mini estate car.
article_snippet.sent: My mother-in-law, who had been my wife’s birthing partner, was busy and helpful in the first days after the babies arrived.
article_snippet.sent: ’s mother when it comes to theories about how to hold a baby, lay a baby in a baby cot or bring up wind.
article_snippet.sent: In July 1997, your correspondent stood there, like any man, feeling a spare part as the aunts and grandmothers and godmothers and female neighbours fell to the aunts and grandmothers and godmothers and female neighbours cooing and gurgling at the purple-faced infant.
article_snippet.sent: For the second and third children, I made admiring noises, told My wife how wonderful My wife was, took a vague squint at the purple-faced infant, then returned to my work.