I lived with the pain of estrangement from my dad for 25 years and the nightmare conclusion still haunts me to this day. Don’t take your miserable family feud to the grave, Charles: ROB MCGIBBON

I can’t help wincing over Prince Harry’s efforts to reunite with his father. This month, he spoke of his longing to make up with his family and his fear that time might be running out due to Charles’s health.

It cut through me because I, too, lived with the gnawing pain of estrangement from my father for 25 years and the nightmare conclusion that haunts me – the end Harry alluded to – came to pass last December. My father, Robin, died suddenly without us being reconciled.

Knowing that my father had endured a traumatic death without our rift being healed is hard to bear. But that’s the unending confusion of estrangement: it leaves you in a strange, numb, nowhere land, a place where none of the natural processes of grief can exist.

The seeds of what would become an intractable and vicious feud between my dad and I were unexpectedly sown when I was 33, during a fun and boozy family get- together on Boxing Day 1998 at his home near Bromley, Kent.

My parents separated when I was ten – my father, aged 35, leaving us for his 19-year-old girlfriend Sue. From then on my three sisters and I traditionally did the Boxing Day fixture at Dad’s.

This time, I had brought my new girlfriend, a striking and exuberant northerner called Amanda. Everything went splendidly that night – or so I thought.

A few weeks into the New Year, Dad was dropping me at a train station after a work meeting when I suggested that us four should have dinner at mine one day soon.

‘That won’t be possible,’ he said abruptly, looking away awkwardly.

‘What! Why’s that?’ I asked, oblivious.

‘The way Amanda treated Sue that night, she will never be welcomed by us again.’

I never did discover how Amanda had offended Sue. I had sensed that she had taken a dislike to Amanda and my father was obviously backing her up – but I had no idea this would ignite a feud that would shape so much of my life.

It really was as petty as that.

Of course, it was ultimately about far more than them being unhappy with my girlfriend. Deep-rooted resentment stemming from my parents’ separation – stuff that had been buried for decades – was triggered in the car that day. You will find unresolved issues at the dark heart of any estrangement worth its bitter salt.

I didn’t know it then, but Dad’s casual insult struck like an unheard rumble on a distant ocean bed. A tsunami was heading our way.

My wave of anger grew during seven long, silent months. I didn’t tell anyone in my family about Dad’s ‘beef’, the term he relished for such instances.

Instead, I chewed over my own beef from the past and seethed as the sense of injustice ate through me. After all I had done for Dad, he could spit in my face and expect me to wipe it away.

I had helped him endlessly over the years. From the earliest days of his new life, he had leant on me.

As young as 12, I was already his confidant and emotional crutch.

He was shamelessly self-indulgent and thought nothing of abusing a young boy’s trust – unforgivably on several occasions.

Quite worldly for my age, I was dragged in to advise him during domestic disputes and business crises, and even what he melodramatically called his ‘Scott Fitzgerald crack-up’, named for the American author’s period of despair.

But he would push me away without a backward glance as soon as things were calm again. He seemed to forget who was the child in our relationship.

This maddening imbalance went on well into my 20s. Yet, we were incredibly close. We shared a loving, fun and often comically off-the-wall relationship.

I was inspired to become a journalist like him and we ended up writing four celebrity biographies together during three intense years (1990-1993).

We shared thrilling success – our books on New Kids On The Block, Gazza and Mick Hucknall were all bestsellers – as well as dismal failure (the Phillip Schofield biography bombed).

I adored Dad and cherished our connection. He was charming and talented, but I also feared his vindictive streak and we never seemed far away from an epic fallout. Once when I was 18, we’d had 18 months of silence.

Feuds were a constant feature of Dad’s life. He had a ruthless attitude towards relationships – most likely the legacy of a complex childhood.

He would often delight in telling me that someone had been ‘written off’.

Two half-siblings, our mother, childhood friends, best mates and important work colleagues – even my eldest sister towards the end – were all crunched at his emotional breakers yard for some minor, or entirely imagined, slight.

My dad was never, ever wrong and the word forgiveness was not in his vocabulary. ‘It doesn’t affect my life,’ was his easy answer whenever I challenged him about the wisdom of falling out with yet another person.

Tellingly, the four people – just four – who wrote to me after Dad’s death had been the closest of mates, but had all been cast aside.

I never wanted to be one of Dad’s ‘write offs’, but my tidal wave of anger finally hit shore on July 10, 1999. I had contrived to exclude Amanda from an important family celebration in order to appease Dad and Sue.

I hated myself for being so weak. Why was I making allowances?

I woke up the day after the event in a rage and reached for the phone. My incoherent attempt to explain my ‘beef’ to Sue and then Dad was a disaster.

It quickly accelerated into a spleen-busting exchange, culminating in me calling Dad a c*** before slamming the phone down.

It was a true masterclass in how not to resolve a family problem.

I sent an apologetic and over-emotional letter in the hope of explaining my side of things, but that made the situation worse. Dad sent a fax and Sue called to have her say. I will never forget her four-word summary of me: ‘You selfish, arrogant prig.’ And so began our irreversible journey to estrangement.

After a cooling off period of a few weeks, Dad and I arranged to meet and talk, then he cancelled. Then I cancelled the next meeting. Months went by, birthdays were missed, as was Christmas. The silence became entrenched.

Even breaking up with Amanda some time later did not make any difference. As my anger retreated, I was consumed with guilt. I knew how much my relationship mattered to Dad. He was so proud of me and had always been so encouraging. I felt terrible that I had wrecked it all, as though I had beaten up an old man.

I also felt for my sisters: get-togethers at Dad’s without me had become particularly awkward. Estrangement causes acute difficulty for so many others. We are all super close and they have been endlessly understanding.

The last time I saw Dad was a bizarre coincidence. I bumped into him at an Arsenal v Chelsea match at Highbury on January 13, 2001 – 18 months into our rift. I was rushing up the packed stairs to the East Stand with a friend and, suddenly, I was standing in front of Dad.

Taken aback, I said ‘hello’ and shook his hand, but kept walking. He was clearly offended I had not stayed to chat because the next morning I got a tough email.

He said that I should forget any prospect of ever meeting up and ended with the carefully constructed pay-off: ‘Why don’t we leave it as it is and speak when there is something to say and shut the door on what you think I should have done with my life. Dad.’ (Fair enough, but I had actually been desperate for the loo and didn’t want to miss the kick-off.)

Despite his valedictory sign-off, Dad was back in touch on email some time later. Another plan to meet up deteriorated into a vicious slanging match. Two men hissing at one another across the glare of distant computer screens, is not healthy for anyone. I told him I was moving on. We reset to silence.

In those early years, I hardly told anyone about my situation with Dad. Back then, estrangement seemed rare. I felt almost embarrassed because it was all so dysfunctional. I certainly didn’t wish to bring out the ashes of something so personal and distressing to be sifted through over a pint.

You soon find that the cold shadow of estrangement is hard to escape. It darkens significant moments in life.

The pain of the situation took on new meaning when my son, Joseph, was born in 2008. Not being able to share that joy with Dad hit me to the core.

Such was my sense of loss that a few months later, I sent some photos of Joseph with a gentle note to Dad suggesting we heal the rift.

Almost by return of post, my envelope arrived, messily re-addressed, with the photos inside. An unnecessarily sarcastic note ended: ‘We want nothing to do with you or your family.’

The years passed. Estrangement became my awkward, unavoidable normality. I thought of Dad constantly, not least as I felt my way through fatherhood. The echo of his influences and our early experiences together continually prodded me. All happy ones, I might add, but they always came with an ache for things to be different.

Seeing Joseph with my wife’s dad would never fail to pull me up, but I’d always hide it. You learn to push away any sadness and just feel grateful that at least one identikit Grandpa, someone kind and wise, is there for your son. The bitterness of estrangement teaches you to embrace what is good.

Eventually, when he was old enough, I explained to Joseph that he didn’t see his other grandad because we had fallen out over a silly argument and we hadn’t yet found a way to make up. Joseph understood, in the way kids do.

Unrealistically, I kept hanging on to hopes of a reconciliation, but it became ever more urgent as Dad’s health deteriorated in his late 70s. Dramatic updates from my sisters filled me with dread that our deathbed moment was ever-more inevitable.

Sleepless nights would often turn to dark thoughts of such a closing scene. I tried one more time to repair things as Dad’s 80th birthday approached in October 2019. I decided to send him a gift.

I mentioned this to Joseph – then just shy of 11 – and he asked excitedly if he could send a card. That would be lovely, I said, and his face lit up. ‘I know what I’m going to write,’ he announced.

Some time later, he drew a card at the kitchen table and proudly read out his message: ‘Dear Grandad. I wish you a very Happy Birthday. Lots of love from Joseph xxx. PS: Please write back.’

‘That’s just perfect,’ I said, then pretended to look for something in a cupboard to hide my tears.

I posted the card with a deliberately non-inflammatory note and included a Montecristo No.4, Dad’s favourite cigar.

Two days later, a terse email arrived. He accused me of using Joseph to get to him – not entirely wrong, I suppose – and said I was to blame for everything. He added: ‘It’s down to you to explain to your son why the awful situation exists.’

I didn’t take the bait and replied calmly. Two hours later, another nasty email accusing me of giving Sue an asthma attack, which he signed off: ‘Don’t contact me again. EVER.’ A day or so later, the cigar arrived in the post without a covering note. I still have it.

On Father’s Day in 2022, I broke the ‘EVER’ instruction and emailed Dad to say that I loved him. It felt important to say it while I could.

I also thanked him for the ‘amazing experiences’ he had given me during my childhood. After all, this was the man who had fixed for me to meet Roger Moore on the submarine set of The Spy Who Loved Me at Pinewood in 1976 and to meet Tatum O’Neal – my absolute teenage crush – in 1978.

I told him I always keep what we got right dear in my heart, rather than dwell on what went wrong.

If you are in a similar situation, I urge you to get in touch. It will count for a lot when it’s all over.

During the Covid lockdowns, I began writing a memoir about Dad and me. I trawled through my teenage diaries and scores of letters, cards, faxes and emails between us across four decades.

Writing about us was unsettling, but cathartic. It helped me piece together the genesis of my resentment that had ultimately driven us apart. I could see how the trust between us had been contaminated. It all helped me understand why I did what I did.

The writing process also made me realise that it was nothing short of miraculous that Dad and I had managed to enjoy such an incredible relationship for so long.

We crammed more into those years than most fathers and sons ever will. So what if it didn’t go the distance.

Despite interest from a publisher, I put my misery memoir aside as Dad’s health deteriorated from 2021 onwards. To have me peeling back our rift was the last thing he needed.

He became seriously ill with multiple issues then in December, aged 85, he suffered a catastrophic stroke at home and was blue-lighted to hospital.

Half-paralysed, unable to speak or eat and semi-conscious, he hung on for four days and three nights.

One of my sisters passed on a message from me: ‘Rob and Joseph are thinking of you and send their love.’ I like to think he heard those words. Dad died just before 1pm on Sunday, December 15.

I often thought of my relationship with Dad as a precious vase I had hurled across a concrete floor. As much as I tried, I could never put it back together again and I came to accept that it would never have been the same vase anyway, so what was the point?

Only recently, I came across the Japanese craft of kintsugi, dating back to the 14th century. Kintsugi makes a deliberate feature of the repaired lines in broken porcelain by dusting the glue with gold, silver or platinum.

The central philosophy is that the flaws enhance an object’s beauty. Examples of ancient kintsugi are often more valuable than similar objects in perfect condition.

I hope that anyone going through estrangement can find, in the spirit of kintsugi, a way to repair the damage and be proud of the parts they manage to fix.

©Rob McGibbon. All rights reserved.