The night before an important German oral exam I asked my father - whose first language was German - whether he had time to have a bit of a warm-up, practice chat with me. Without putting his newspaper down, he replied: "You haven't really got anything to say in English, so what's the point in speaking German?"

I am not settling any old scores here. It was a good line and essentially accurate. The truth is I don't think I had a proper conversation with my father about anything serious until I was about 18 years old. The good conversations came later.