MANNERS are all important in my book. It is the duty of mums and dads to ensure they are not forgotten.

I once wrote about the little boy who was watching a magician perform at a children's party. "What's the magic word?" the boy was asked. "Abracadabra" would have done the trick.

"Please," the boy replied, instinctively.

"Please" is indeed a magic word - a special word. Just like "thank you", "excuse me" and "pardon" are also magical.

In stark contrast, I was on a train to London last week and overheard a boy of maybe 13 ask his mother: "Can I have a toffee?"

"What else do you say?" she asked.

"Can I have a toffee - now," he said.

Incredibly, she gave him one. I sat there watching him chew it between Stevenage and Kings Cross, praying - politely - for it to remove a filling.

It inspired me to renew my efforts to hammer home the value of manners to my own children.

We were sitting round the table for Sunday lunch and our youngest, aged seven, asked for a drink.

"What do you say?" I asked.

"Please," he replied.

"You should say 'please' without being asked," I told him.

"Thanks," he said, quickly, realising the error of his ways.

(This, by the way, is the same child who was once arguing with his brother and told not to shout at the table. "I wasn't shouting at the table," he replied, "I was shouting at Jack.")

Anyway, he carried on eating his lunch and started rocking backwards and forwards on his chair. "Sit still on your chair," I told him, sternly.

Looking round the table, it wasn't just him who was rocking on his chair, but his ten-year-old brother too. Meanwhile, our eldest son, aged 14, was lounging back in his chair so that for every pea he managed to swallow, another fell on the floor. Only their sister was sitting properly.

I began to lose patience: "Your manners are absolutely appalling. Sit straight at the table."

It was at that precise moment that there was a crack beneath me. Then a snap as I dropped a few inches. Crack, snap, crack, crunch.

It seemed to happen in slow motion but before I had chance to react, my chair had completely collapsed and I was sitting in a heap on the floor, knife and fork in hand, surrounded by bits of wood, dropped peas and the odd carrot.

The kids were in fits: "What was that you said about sitting straight at the table, Dad?" mocked the eldest. "You should ask before you leave the table, you know."

"Yes, very funny," I replied.

What really got to me was the way their mum looked down at me and said: "That's the broken chair - it's been broken for ages. You shouldn't be sitting on it - it should be in the corner, out of the way."

I freely admit that my reply was not particularly well-mannered.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

A PARTY of schoolchildren were being shown round a fire station on an educational visit. The chief officer told them that humans were the only creatures in the world who could start and put out fires, and repeated the message a number of times during the tour.

When the visit was over, he tested them by asking: "And what is it that humans do that no other creature in the world does?" A little girl put up her hand and replied: "Humans are the only creatures in the world who use toilet paper."

* Thanks to Ernie Reynolds, of Wheatley Hill, County Durham, for sending in this story.

"DAD, you should have seen this man on the Paralytic Games - he was absolutely amazing." - our Max, aged seven.

DAD AT LARGE 3

IT'S coming soon...After a summer of proof-reading, the third Dad At Large book is almost ready to go off to the printers.

"Dad At Large 3 - Whose Paper Round Is It Anyway?" is a compilation of columns and the "Things They Say" collected from around the region.

The book, priced at £5, will again raise money for the Butterwick Children's Hospice at Stockton. Watch this space for more details...

Published: 23/09/2004