I know what you're thinking, you're alone now, no love of your own, but darling.....

As Young Ben and I were reading about The Gruffalo's Child last night with accompanying noises I recalled a recent blog I read by anelephantcant about what we read at home and what we read at school. I fully agreed with the point made that reading at school is often seen as a chore whilst reading books of your own choice at home is a pleasure.

The books I read when I was younger were recommended to me by my father and in turn I encouraged my own children to read these books. Classics like Animal Farm, Of Mice And Men, The Old Man And The Sea and The Catcher In The Rye. I don't mean my children read these at Primary School, at that time they would be enjoying the delights of the wonderful Roald Dahl and his Enormous Crocodile or his BFG. I believe we read them all and I look forward to reading them again with Young Ben

As my sons have grown older book recommendations have become a reciprocal agreement and they have introduced me to some excellent books and authors which I might otherwise have missed...books like The Book Thief, Half Of A Yellow Sun and Shantaram. When my youngest son spent some time in India last year I found myself reading books set in that region such as A Fine Balance and Q and A (which was made into the movie Slumdog Millionaire) and this led me to try more contemporary books such as The Kite Runner and The Reluctant Fundamentalist which are two of the best books I have ever read

It seems to me it is not just reading which is affected by our own families. My musical tastes were definitely influenced by my two older brothers. I cannot give my father too much credit with this category although I do sometimes listen to Mr Jolson if I am feeling particularly nostalgic. Growing up in Ayr in The Sixties my brothers were both in their teens and I recall fondly listening to Dylan, Elvis and The Beatles with some Leonard Cohen thrown in if you had just been "dumped". However my most vivid musical memory is of my oldest brother coming home from town one day with his latest purchased "single" and proceeding to play Reach Out by The Four Tops Ad infinitum. You would think this would have put me off this song but to this day it remains one of my favourites and whenever it comes on the radio I still get a tingle down my spine as I am taken back in time to special days gone by.

As years passed I developed my own musical tastes and then in turn tried to pass these on to my sons. Some were successful like Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye others like Roxy Music or Steely Dan not so much In turn my sons have attempted to make me listen to more modern music. Most of this has fallen on stony ground but I am not averse to some John Legend or Kanye West and I found those Arctic Monkey fellows reasonably entertaining. I sometimes switch from Smooth Radio to Radio 1 for ten minutes to show that I am still "down with the kids" but by actually using the phrase "down with the kids" I have patently shown that I am in fact nowhere near to being "down with the kids".

At least Young Ben has not quite realised this yet but I get the impression he is catching on fast. The fact that I was singing Two Little Boys to him the other night has probably not helped my cause in any way but at least it did get him off to sleep (I think he was worried about Joe and those loud cannons). I reassured him the next day that it all ended well for Joe. Next time I will try a somewhat cheerier song like Old Shep or Alone Again (Naturally)