It's Father's Day tomorrow so we've decided to serve up an extra helping of The Things They Say... - mainly to help our Dad At Large off-load some of the huge number of anecdotes which have been flooding in from around the region...

ERNIE Reynolds, of Wheatley Hill, County Durham, was surprised to be informed by his three-year-old grandson that he now liked women. "Since when did you like women?" asked his grandad.

"After Mummy took me to the women baths," came the reply.

PAULINE Dowse, of Richmond, was so concerned about the yukka plant standing on the floor of her sitting room that she was moved to ring a radio gardening programme.

"I just can't understand why the leaves have gone yellow," she explained. She hasn't passed on the advice she was given but it was no doubt extremely knowledgeable.

It was a little while later that she discovered the truth when she caught her son, aged two and a half (and now a strapping 25), weeing in it. Oh yukka!

Matthew, aged four, from Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough, wasn't too happy when his dad showed him a woodlouse he'd found in the garden. The insect was on its back with its legs wiggling and the little boy shouted: "Switch it off, quick, Daddy." Like most things in a child's life, he thought it was powered by batteries.

A LITTLE girl, aged three, was being looked after by her Auntie Jean while her mum and dad had a night out. Auntie Jean, who'd never had children of her own, was having trouble getting the child off to sleep and was nursing her in her arms. "Why haven't you got any little boys and girls?" the girl asked. "Because I haven't been married," replied Auntie Jean.

"Why's that?" asked the girl.

"I just never met anyone," answered Auntie Jean, patiently.

"I think it's because you're not very pretty," concluded her interrogator.

HELEN was telling her grandma that she'd been having sex lessons at school. "Oh," said Grandma. "And are you worried about anything?" "Not really," replied Helen. "You just get boobs and pyramids."

A GRANDMA called Marie was helping out, as she often does, at Crook Primary School, and playing "I Spy" with the children.

A little girl opposite had a turn: "I spy with my little eye something beginning with w." All kinds of things from window to wastepaper basket were suggested without success.

"Give in?" she asked. "It's willy," she added, pointing to a little boy with an unfortunate split in his trousers.

"That's wrong," interrupted another girl next to her. "It should be 'p' for penis."

* Got a present for the dad in your life yet? Peter Barron will be signing copies of the original Dad At Large book and the follow-up "Dad At Large 2 - To Vasectomy And Beyond" in the reception area of The Northern Echo's head office in Priestgate, Darlington, between 10.30am and 11.30am today. Copies cost £5 with £1 going to the Butterwick Children's Hospice.

Happy Father's Day!