No man is happy without an instruction manual, be it for a widescreen TV or a Black & Decker drill. And the heir to the throne is apparently no exception.
Prince William – ever the military man – is preparing for impending fatherhood with a no-nonsense guide by former Commando and father-of-three Neil Sinclair.
The Prince is working his way through Commando Dad – Basic Training, a handbook in the style of Basic Battle Skills, the Army bible given to new recruits.
No-nonsense: Adam Lee Potter puts the book to the test with 11-month-old Bert Thompson
Described by the author as ‘accessible basic training for dads’, the book uses military terminology throughout.
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Babies are referred to as BTs (baby troopers), toddlers as MTs (mobile troopers). Home is referred to as ‘Base Camp’, the emptying of dirty nappies as ‘Bomb Disposal’ and holidays are ‘long-term major deployments’.
Armed with the tome, I ‘borrowed’ my neighbours’ 11-month-old son Bert Thompson to put the advice to the test. The training is certainly basic: Gina Ford à la Pippa Middleton.
But the Prince, who admits he has never changed a nappy, will no doubt have absorbed the fail-safe, ten-point plan, which sits neatly in a chapter entitled New Recruits: Surviving The First 24 Hours, accompanied by four illustrations.
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Bert and I just about got through it, though I had entirely forgotten that boys invariably wee in your eye.
Chapter 12 meanwhile is, frankly, frightening. Dealing With Hostilities explores such tricky subjects as ‘establishing boundaries’, ‘unit regulations’ and ‘age-appropriate sanctions’.
I read all this aloud to Bert, who promptly responded by taking off his beret and jabbing me in the eye with a sticky finger.