Sir Michael Parkinson on his father, grief and the Piers Morgan interview that sparked his latest book

For a man who has sparred, verbally at least, with the late, great Muhammad Ali, and who, during a career spanning more than 50 years, has shown himself to be adroit at coaxing out the innermost feelings of the great and good on camera, it was a shock to see him break down during a televised interview with Piers Morgan.
Sir Michael Parkinson seen here in 2014. (Picture: Tony Johnson).Sir Michael Parkinson seen here in 2014. (Picture: Tony Johnson).
Sir Michael Parkinson seen here in 2014. (Picture: Tony Johnson).

Yet this what happened when Sir Michael Parkinson, or Parky as he’s affectionately known, appeared on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories. Pressed by the Good Morning Britain presenter about the death of his father, the veteran broadcaster was overwhelmed by grief.

Parky had written about his father, who died in 1976, previously, and was shocked by his own reaction. It prompted him to delve deeper into the dynamics of their lives together and he enlisted his youngest son Mike, a TV director, to help him.

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The result is a new book – Like Father, Like Son – written by the two men. It is ostensibly a paean to John William Parkinson, Parky’s father and Mike’s grandfather, who Parky describes as a ‘Yorkshireman, miner, humourist and fast bowler’.

A young Parky with his mother and father (‘miner, humourist and fast bowler’) on a beach in Scarborough in 1938. (Picture: Parkinson Productions).A young Parky with his mother and father (‘miner, humourist and fast bowler’) on a beach in Scarborough in 1938. (Picture: Parkinson Productions).
A young Parky with his mother and father (‘miner, humourist and fast bowler’) on a beach in Scarborough in 1938. (Picture: Parkinson Productions).

It is also a book about grief, love, families and all the complexities and tensions they encapsulate. “It had a life of its own because it wasn’t quite the book I’d imagined it would be,” says Parky.

The pair were in the process of writing the book when the pandemic struck, which Mike says made it more introspective.

“When you’re faced with the prospect of losing your father and mother – because certainly during the first lockdown it was a frightening time – you begin to consider, as a son, what would you miss about them and what would you lose and that gave a flavour to the book that wasn’t there.”

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The story begins in Cudworth, a former mining village just outside Barnsley, peppered with tall and tender tales of sporting valour, usually involving cricket or Barnsley Football Club.

“As much as everyone says he’s written beautifully about his dad, and he has,” Mike points out, “he hasn’t written that extensively and once you put the articles together you have a very nice pamphlet, but it’s not a book”.

It was Mike’s idea to explore his grandfather’s life as a miner working in Grimethorpe Colliery. “I think that’s crucial to the book itself and is crucial to why I adored this man so much,” says Parky. “It also changes the rhythm of the book and makes it more interesting than just a story about a decent bloke.”

Mike wanted to shed light on what his grandfather and countless other miners like him had to endure. “It’s not a glib thing to say that I could not have lasted a day down there, never mind 40 years. It would have destroyed me physically, morally and spiritually. It would have broken me.

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“So for him to do that for so long and to come out of that pit and to remain the man that I knew him as, who was funny and smiling and full of happiness, is just remarkable and it’s a lesson to us all. These were remarkable men, not just my father, but all of them,” he says.

For Parky, the book was also a chance to correct a common assumption that growing up in a mining village like Cudworth must have been harsh.

“It wasn’t terrible, I had a happy, safe and secure childhood. It was a better childhood than many kids today could care to hope for, being safe and secure and playing freely in the street. That sense of community was very important and it wrapped itself around you like a pair of arms. And we were happy.”

It was through their mutual love of sport, and particularly cricket, that Parky and his father bonded.

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“My father did believe that cricket was the most important thing in the world. It was his religion in many ways, and it was a spiritual thing as much as anything. And it is in Yorkshire, cricket is a great source of Yorkshire pride.

“You were brought up with that sense you were something special just because you’d been born there and the 11 guys who represented the team were god-like in a sense, and my father was very much taken with that idea.

“A lot of his life was predicated on cricket and the rules of the game and the way it was played and what it stood for. For all the times he came down to the studio to watch the Parkinson show and meet all the film stars that he adored, I know that in the back of his mind it wasn’t like meeting Len Hutton,” he says with a chuckle.

The book, then, was an opportunity to reflect on the impact of losing a man he so clearly adored.

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“The book came from grief. It came from being shocked and crying at the death of my father. Not that I’m ashamed at crying, not at all, but why I’d reacted like this 40 years on. And it made me wonder why something that I imagined was locked away in my past came out so vividly in that moment from just a simple question about what I felt when he died.”

For Mike, it was also a chance to be candid about his relationship with his own father.

“As I make clear in the book in the early years, for a variety of reasons, he was a difficult man to be a son to. But as I make the point, anyone who is the son of an enormously famous and successful father has issues with self-esteem and struggles with self-identity. But that’s not my father’s fault.”

It is one of several strands in the book that prevent it becoming sentimental. “I didn’t want it to be a saccharine story about the wonderful Parkinson family, because frankly no family is perfect.”

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The pair have grown closer as a result of working together over the past 15 years or so. “My father and grandfather found each other on the cricket field, and we found each other through work,” says Mike.

They both hope the book resonates with readers irrespective of their own family backgrounds. “I think what people will take from it is that bafflement that we all have, about what is a family and how does it function?” says Parky. “Maybe a lesson to learn is it is important that children take on the best aspects of their parents.”

Mike says he learned to see his dad as a human being first and then a father. “Once you understand that as a son, you might go some way to realising that the vast majority of people do the best they can with what they’ve got.

“And if you can come to that realisation then no amount of difficulties you may have had with your father are insurmountable. And if you have a father like my father had, then you are one of the luckiest people alive.”

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Like Father, Like Son, is published by Hodder & Stoughton, and is out now.

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