Vaux site news welcome, plus a Father's Day puzzler
About time too, Tesco agreeing to sell the eyesore Vaux site.It's certainly cause for celebration that at long, long last – 11 years too long – Sunderland now gets the site back.
The news that Tesco has agreed, in principle, to sell the land to regional development agency, One North East, ignites us all with hope of what we could see here.
This is a big site and we need big ideas and big investment.
And we can but hope that after this endless stalemate scenario, we see something happening sooner rather than later.
It's the perfect site for a new hotel and breathing new life into the river where the only thing that moves at present are rats.
My hope is that what goes up here is a statement for this city, that for once we aren't overshadowed by inspirational developments on the Tyne.
Let's transcend the mundane, and see landmark buildings to match this deal and anything but another circus ensuing, given it's been a circus site for more than a decade without a clown, elephant or trapeeze artist in sight.
FATHER'S Day set me thinking how much dads have changed and it left me with a puzzler.
Given fathers have never been more approachable than today, why is it almost half of 11-15-year-olds "hardly ever" talk to their dad according to the Children's Society?
"Wait till your dad gets home," was the once-veiled threat meted out by mothers on a daily basis.
That was when dads really were the breadwinners, grafting in pits, shipyards and heavy industries and fit for nothing when they got home except wolfing down a square meal.
Now, thankfully we have new men who are openly relaxed and happy to throw themselves into the role of bringing up baby, unlike the remote and even scary, autocratic father of a generation ago.
Stern and authoritarian, as the head of the house, his word was law and love for his children undemonstrative. The idea of talking about how much they meant to him would have been not only an embarrassment but seen as a weakness.
All that has gone by the board and there's no shame in a man saying how much he loves his kids.
And now the Children's Society is urging young people who are more likely to confide in their mother, to have a deep, meaningful conversation with their father.
The fact is teenagers don't want to spill the beans about their lives.
It's all part of growing up and having their own secrets that parents aren't privy to. Sadly so many children don't have a dad in their lives to talk to.
One dad who uttered the most moving words was a friend, who at 45 never thought he would be and grew up without one in his life, never knowing the tenderness of affection he showers on his daughter of six months.
He can't remember a time when he was so supremely happy and told me: "I am amazed at such unconditional love and the strength of it that you have with your baby and I don't think you can find that anywhere else.
"It's weird you have this unconditional love, you are completely in charge, they are helpless. You have all the power but they hold all the aces because whatever they want they can have. Their needs come before yours."
Email to a friend
Print this page- Sunderland striker Campbell fresh to face Middlesbrough
- Sunderland’s astonishing rise even surprising Martin O’Neill
- Middlesbrough 1 Sunderland 2 (aet): O’Neill relieved to avoid shoot-out lottery as Sessegnon wins it
- Martin O’Neill defends David Meyler after criticism from Tony Pulis
- Kieran Richardson says there is plenty more to come from James McClean
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Sunderland
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -3 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South west
