Father, Dear Father

- Season 2

(1969)

Patrick gets it into his head that he is terminally ill after his doctor, Nanny and the girls all begin to act in a very secretive manner. He develops a cold and goes to bed but further reading convinces him he is dying. In fact the secrecy was due to the fact that it is his birthday,which he had forgotten,and a surprise party is being held for him. He is about to join in when Dr. Fraser tells him he has German Measles and must return to bed.

The girls want to buy a secondhand car. Patrick, beset by bills, tells them to earn the money themselves; so Anna gets a job as a Bunny girl in a nightclub. By coincidence Patrick then visits the club with an old army friend, and is shocked to see Anna there. His efforts to grab her are misunderstood, and he is thrown out. He ends up buying the car.

Anna leaves home and moves into a tiny,dingy bedsit. Patrick comes to visit and,due to a misunderstanding,thinks she lives in the flat down stairs,occupied by Julia and Justin,a married couple. Patrick takes the phone number without his daughter knowing and when he phones and Justin answers,assumes she is living in sin.Eventually Anna returns home.

The Glovers go to donate blood and Patrick is horrified to discover that he has a different blood group to his daughters,which clearly intimates that he is not their father. He suspects his ex-wife Barbara of infidelity and tries to obtain clues from Barbara's new husband Bill and a couple of her old flames but eventually finds out that the donor cards got mixed up and he is the girls' father after all.

Whilst touring in Ireland, Philip, Patrick's actor brother, finds a baby left outside his dressing-room and asks the Glovers to look after it while he tries to trace the mother. However a jealous husband is convinced that Philip is the father. Further confusion reigns when Patrick orders a cot for the child and, when a man from whom he is buying a boat, rings up, assumes he is from the shop selling the cot and asks for instant delivery. All is solved when the O'Briens, the baby's parents turn up, saying they only put the baby down for five minutes and were amazed when...

Mr. Byrde, the family solicitor, contacts Patrick. He is concerned that Patrick and Barbara may not be legally divorced, due to an oversight in the procedure, and asks to see them both. Barbara's current husband Bill misunderstands, and assumes that Barbara wants to divorce him and get back with Patrick - but the missing document is eventually found, proving the divorce was completed.