Tom and Jerry, biscuits and family life

Dad did seem to have home and work pretty clearly defined, basically everything was work. At home he had the two biggest rooms in the house, one as his studio, one as the store room for his paintings. He worked all the time, every day. Although our shelves were laden with Dostoevsky, Mayakovsky, Dickens, Colette and others, he relaxed by watching snooker or Tom and Jerry cartoons. Seriously. Or eating chocolate biscuits; the Kiffs spent many years on biscuit quality control checks. He was also brilliant at helping me with my homework. I found out I was dyslexic when I was 35. Turns out all the training they give you these days to help you study, dad was already doing for me, though no one really believed dyslexia existed then. I did because I was. We frequently reduced all my written work to pictures, diagrams, shapes and colours. At times my homework became 3D, modelled out of plasticine. I'm pretty damned sure he and my mother were dyslexic, it's all the rage now. My brother escaped this gift. 

Nice anecdote:

In class at school, I must have been 8 or 9 years old. We were doing a class on jobs/careers. I asked the boy next to me:

Me: What does your dad do?

Dominic: He's a painter.

Me : Omg! (or a 1970's version) So's mine! What does he paint?

Dominic: (Looking at me oddly) Walls. What does your dad paint?

Me: (Looking at him oddly) Pictures.