Where to Next, Albert?

One wet, tired evening in front of the telly. A five-second clip of Albert Tatlock giving Ken Barlow grief – and suddenly a lifetime of thoughts about fathers, sons, class and progress comes tumbling out.

I got in from work the other day wet, exhausted, fed up and tired. Nothing new there. Just a normal day at the office — which is actually a road sweeper.

I changed into my comfy afternoon lounging-about clothes, put the kettle on, and settled down with the cat to watch some shit on the telly and hopefully drift off for a little nap.

And then I saw it.

Grainy black-and-white images on the screen. Albert Tatlock, leaning into a very young Ken Barlow, giving him grief for going to university. Calling him soft. Saying he’d come back with a head full of ideas above his station.

Five seconds. That’s all it took.

A throwaway moment from a programme I wasn’t even really watching — and suddenly I was wide awake, because it hit something I didn’t even know was still sitting there.

It struck me straight away how this old bloke we all know and love from countless nights of watching Corrie — who clearly loved Ken in his own way — just couldn’t bring himself to encourage the kid sitting opposite him at the kitchen table.

I don’t want to disrespect the memory of Albert, or the millions of real working-class men his character represented. Far from it. Those men were forged in a different world, with different rules, and they carried a lot on their shoulders.

But my thoughts went straight to my son, Ben.

I can’t remember a single time I didn’t want him to do better than me — to get as far up that greasy pole as he could, with just a couple of rules to stick to along the way.

Never step on anyone else to get where you’re going.

Never, ever forget where you came from.

It set me thinking about who Albert was, who he thought he was supposed to be, and how we, as a society, shook all that loose and landed here.

We must have been right in the middle of that shift back in the late sixties or early seventies — otherwise Coronation Street wouldn’t have been dealing with it as a storyline in the first place.

I don’t remember talking to my dad about careers. Hardly ever, in fact. Not properly. But I know, in his own way, he’d have wanted me to do alright.

When Ben was very young — nine or ten — he was brilliant at anything practical. Mowing the grass with his dad. Sweeping up in the neighbours’ gardens. Going out to earn a few quid. That instinct was in him from day one. I never had to teach the kid a work ethic — it was always there.

I used to take him to work with me on Saturday mornings. I had an overtime job emptying skips full of bottles from pubs around Hertford at silly o’clock. All the shopkeepers loved him and would often give him a pound or two “drink” just for being out with his dad at that time of the morning, earning a crust.

And here’s the point of all these musings.

Ben was welcome to stay in our world — doing what we did, come rain or shine. But it was never expected.

One day I was changing a wheel on the car and let him do it instead, guiding him along as I went. A couple of weeks later I was struck down with flu, courtesy of a toddler my wife was looking after, and couldn’t get out of bed.

She had a real flat tyre.

Without hesitation, Ben jumped up, grabbed the car keys, and changed the wheel himself.

He was so little he had to stand fully on the wheel brace to crack the bolts, and again to tighten them. I’ve never felt prouder in my life than I did at that moment.

I didn’t know it then, but that wasn’t just a kid changing a wheel on a driveway. It was the first glimpse of how he’d deal with things when it mattered. That same calm, that same instinct to step forward, I’ve seen it again and again since — just under different kinds of weight. The tools changed, the situations got bigger, but the lad didn’t disappear.

After that came twelve years in the army. A world away from wheel braces and driveways, but built on the same things — turning up, cracking on, carrying your share. Now he’s in another phase altogether: studying, learning, managing, moving through work with the same quiet confidence. Still graft — just aimed in a different direction.

I didn’t know Albert. Of course I didn’t.

But I do know the proud fathers — in their millions — who’d be saying the same thing about their kids right now. And maybe that’s the point of all this. This is a really big shift.

Yesterday I went to visit Ben and found him tapping away at his keyboard, flying through tasks that look completely unfathomable to me, using AI as a tool while studying for a Level 7 qualification I could never have imagined.

He even coached me a little while he was at it. Calm. Patient. No fuss.

When he told me the AI had a voice feature so I didn’t have to type, I started moaning about how much easier last week would have been if I’d known that then. A particularly hard week for me.

He stopped me gently.

Last week’s gone, Dad. Put your energy into this one.He called it forward facing.

So there’s the question, right there.

If he can do all of that…

Where to next, Albert?