Tim Vincent: Why I launched a parenting panel show for dads

A couple of years ago, when Tim Vincent was about to become a father for the first time, all his male friends told him the same thing.

“They said: ‘Ugh, the first 6-12 months, mate, get that out the way. You’ll never sleep the same again, even if the kids aren’t in the house. You’ll always have that battered dad sense going on.’ I was like, when will people start telling me the good thing about having children?”

Vincent read all the books, readied himself, and when his twin sons, Felix and Jasper, arrived, he discovered that while it was “a bit tough”, he “enjoyed every second of it” – and still does. But he still couldn’t find much honest discussion between men about the joys, or at least realities, of parenting.

A colleague at a production company, who’d also had a baby, agreed. So they cooked up an idea: create a radio panel show designed expressly for men to speak honestly about becoming dads. The worries, the challenges, the emotions.

The result is The Likely Dads, which begins a full series tonight on BBC Radio 4, following a successful pilot earlier in the year. Former Blue Peter presenter Vincent, 47, is the host, with comics Russell Kane (father of one) and Mick Ferry (father of three) the regular panellists, alongside a revolving door of famous guests.

“The biggest issue we have is knowing what to cover, because there’s so much,” says Vincent. “You just ask a few questions and everyone’s off, with their admissions, their experiences, their guilt trips…” As well as that, they’ll discuss things like why Mothercare isn’t called Parentcare, and how the politics of the school gates really works.

“People assume because it’s men talking about being dads, it must be anti-something, but it isn’t. The only thing it’s anti is ourselves, because a group of guys tend to take the mick out of each other. We might have some good tips, an emotional story about how Russell still blubbers when he drops his daughter off at nursery, and then quickly someone else tells one about getting their children in for free at Alton Towers. It just keeps going.”

It is a good study in how men communicate: three jokes and an earnest comment, then quickly onto a joke again. But the themes, which touch on everything from anxiety about being an older father to the tricky balance between being a ‘fun dad’ and a disciplinarian, are serious.

Both were among Vincent’s worries: whether he’ll be there for landmarks like meeting his grandchildren, whether he’ll be fit enough to run around the park, or whether it might be an issue with boys that he’s not really into football.

“I thought there would be at least a chance I’d get a little girl, then I got two boys, and I was like, that’s going to be a challenge, because I’m not into football and I can see myself shivering on a touchline when I’d rather be at home watching a rerun of some schmaltzy film while learning to braid my daughter’s hair,” he says. “But that hasn’t happened, and boys are so much fun. They’re keeping me active.”

The whole experience of making the show, he says, has taught him that some things in parenting are universal, but no two parents are the same. “It’s like that thing of: ‘Are dads better than mums at some things?’ Well, yes, but it depends which dad and which mum, just as mums are better than dads at some things, depending on who it is. Everyone is different, but everyone has similar experiences they can share.

“I think I’ve learnt that fathers are slightly more redundant in the first six months because they’re just running around trying to help out, and the mother is understandably in charge and exhausted. You’re just the magician’s assistant – equally exhausted but not quite as connected and up to speed.”

Vincent co-parents his twins, having separated from TV producer Gemma Charles last year. She lives 10 minutes away from him in west London, and they are “in the same bubble” and get on well, so lockdown “probably wasn’t as difficult as it was for other people”, he says.

“But you need an infrastructure of other people that have babies of a similar age, to compare and contrast what’s going on. It’s another thing men are not necessarily good at. They don’t have these big WhatsApp groups with other dads to discuss nappy movements.”

I had imagined, erroneously, that Vincent’s four years as a Blue Peter presenter in the 1990s – starting when he was just 21, fresh from North Wales – might have made him a dab hand with kids. Apparently not.

“It’s a fallacy a lot of people have made, but I like children because I talk to them not down to them... but anything else, their mother is a lot better than me. I still struggle to remember to put my trousers on when I go out. Any arts and crafts, I can’t. Jasper and Felix find it funnier to put the paint on me,” he says. “It’s probably a sign of the times but they’re much happier making a video for a birthday than making a card.”

As somebody who grew up watching Vincent work wonders with sticky-back plastic, I am shocked. It’s like hearing Gary Lineker is rubbish at keepy-uppies. Those are surely skills you don’t lose.

“No, you don’t lose them, but I never had them to begin with. When you do Blue Peter, you would be throwing yourself out of planes or running marathons or whatever, but when I was doing a ‘make’ item, those are probably the most technical things you have to do on the show. I think even BBC newsreaders would struggle to do a six-minute item seamlessly, which looks fun, and with someone at your knees ready to hand you something, and remembering to do things in the right order.”

Life post-Blue Peter can be precarious and unpredictable these days. Some, like Matt Baker, Simon Thomas and Helen Skelton, roar off into other realms of gentle presenting. Richard Bacon, who was infamously sacked after a cocaine scandal, leaned into his bad-boy (relative term) image to go into more laddie ventures. Konnie Huq writes children’s books.

Vincent, though, appeared on such long-forgotten gems as a reality show called I’m Famous and Frightened, presented several Miss World contests, and has spent much of the past 15 years in the US, working on entertainment show Access Hollywood.

He’s now back in the UK, single, with “no time” for a relationship, and still working for Access as a roving reporter. He also lends his voice to Channel 5 documentaries and, bizarrely, has an upcoming campaign promoting personal protective equipment (PPE) in America.

“They wanted somebody that was ‘Hugh Grant-esque’ – I told them I was more northern, they said I still sound better than them, so…”

Before that, of course, there’s eight episodes of The Likely Dads, which he hopes might make male listeners feel a little less alone, and a little less lost, in fatherhood.

“I want people to nod along in silent agreement,” says Vincent. “We’re not professing to be experts in anything, just having our experiences heard.”

The Likely Dads begins on BBC Radio 4 tonight at 11pm