In 1983, purely out of curiosity, I switched on the telly to see what all the fuss about Breakfast TV was about.

I can vividly remember the derisory and despairing stare with which my father fixed me and after a heavy sigh, delivered these words.

“I wanted to say I’d gone to my grave without watching Breakfast TV”

This withering and accusatory remark was aided, I think, by the fact, that he was in his suit and dressed for work and had just finished the daily task of clearing the coal fire from last night.

I, on the other hand, was unemployed, living at home, unshaven, bleary eyed and in my dressing gown.

So you could have some sympathy with his disdain and the disappointment he had in his younger son. Both my lifestyle choices and contribution to the home were in the spotlight here. It didn’t look good.

However, it remains the fact, that from almost the very day after this outburst, my father gleefully sat in his chair every morning from then until the day he died and watched hour upon hour of Breakfast TV. Whatever it was, the Olympics, Bizzy Lizzie’s workouts, or the endless stream of innocuous, turgid and relentlessly trivial light entertainment news stories, delivered by beaming imbeciles in brightly coloured sweaters, they were all happily digested by the sedentary J R Roberts. Until he eventually croaked.

This story reminds me of my original resistance to Netflix. Pay to view? What? What’s the world coming to? Are you serious? I’m not doing that! Never! Watching telly should be about public broadcasting and Morecambe and Wise. Netflix? Netflix???

Having eventually succumbed I now happily watch hour upon hour of Netflix. And damn good a lot of it is too.

And who heralded my conversion? It was my son of course. He told me it was “great”. He was right.

The river flows my friends, from father to son to father to son from generation to generation from Breakfast TV to Netflix.