As a pioneering New Man a generation ago, I was well involved in the day-to-day routine when it came to looking after our children. But you become rusty, don't you?

Sometimes, though, you have to shake off the rust - and fast. The emergency call came at 6.30 on the Wednesday morning. Our daughter was ill with flu and feeling so wobbly that she didn't really trust herself to be handling and carrying grandson Sam.

Son-in-law was working away. No-one else was available to step into the breach. So it was down to Grandma and Granddad.

Grandma, not due into work until the afternoon, raced off the 25 miles to collect Sam while daughter retired to bed with various pills and potions. And this Granddad, relieved to have a few hours of lieu time in hand, managed to arrange the afternoon off.

When I arrived home, Sam was just finishing his lunch. There followed a brief lesson in nappy changing - rather necessary as it turned out, because the last nappies I changed, nearly 30 years ago, were made of towelling and fastened with safety pins. These were disposable and held together with self-adhesive strips, and have a front side and a back side which are not to be confused..

"And don't forget to pull his flaps out," I was told. Pardon? "The flaps around the nappy legs. They're for comfort." Oh, right. Olden Days nappies didn't have flaps.

Then the expert dashed off to work. This was it. Here we go. Granddad flying solo, somewhat nervously.

The best option seemed to be to let Sam sleep if he would. He has something of a reputation for preferring not to.

I closed the curtains in the back bedroom, popped him in the travel cot, had a few gentle words with him and raced downstairs to make myself a cheese sandwich and eat it at great speed before he started to create.

All stayed silent though. I crept upstairs to find him lying there, totally relaxed and fast asleep. So I did the washing-up, hung out the washing and read the paper, and thought that this baby-minding was a doddle.

And then the phone rang. I dashed to it. It was shaky-sounding daughter wondering if her son was all right. He was. But now he was also awake, and wearing a heavy, aromatic nappy.

So I cleaned him up and changed it rather clumsily while he looked at me somewhat bemused, occasionally making little noises of protest (me, not him - I'd forgotten how horrible dirty nappies can be).

And then, for want of anything better to do, we went out for a walk - him in his buggy with his peaked cap pulled down to shade him from the sun, me strutting proudly behind.

It isn't until you push a pram around that you realise what a terrible state some of our pavements are in. What with dodging the uneven paving stones and piles of dog muck, it needs a lot of concentration.

But even so, it was fun. We travelled a route I'd often travelled with his mother many years before, and then we went home and I warmed up a bottle for a mid-afternoon drink for him.

I hadn't been left any instruction about this. I was using my initiative here. He had a sort of thirsty look about him. I was right. The bottle of milk vanished in no time and was rewarded with a hearty belch.

And then it was play time.

We had a few laughs while he sat in his chair and I went through various Silly Granddad antics. I carried him around the garden and told him about the flowers.

He sat in his chair on the lawn while I unpegged the washing and coiled up the line. He loved that, chuckling as the rope snaked about the grass.

Teatime beckoned. I bunged a jar of something savoury that looked quite dreadful into the warmer and sat him in his high chair.

Neither he nor I much enjoyed the feeding experience. I was timid, afraid of hurting little gums that were a bit tender with teething. In my anxiety not to be too rough with the spoon, I didn't push it far enough in. As a result, quite a bit of his potato and broccoli puree went up his nose.

He looked somewhat relieved when Grandma arrived home from work and took over. But although Granddad's first solo flight had suffered a couple of patches of minor turbulence, it hadn't been anything like the shambles it might have been. We were still friends.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.