Alex Cumming (Live)

[Spoken]
Earlier I was talking about my book and I feel a bit disingenuous
Really because I talked about only my Grandfather
And actually the book is more about my father
It’s called not my father’s son it’s not called not my grandfather's grandson
And uh the whole thing the whole reason that this book happened
Is that I was doing that BBC show and right the evening before
The evening before I started filming the show
My father who I haven’t seen in nearly 2 decades
Came out of the woodwork via my brother and told me I was not his son
Yes it was a bit of a big summer
And so um that’s really what the book is about
And so and the writing of this book and it was a book I felt compelled to write
I had to in order to explain to the reader why I hadn’t seen my dad in all those years
I had to go back to my childhood and talk about my lack of relationship with my dad
It wasn’t a very happy childhood my dad was very violent and not a very nice man
And so in the same way that I marked my grand dad earlier
I wanted to mark my dad in some way during the show
But unfortunately there aren’t that many songs about abusive father son relationships out there
It’s a musical calling that has not been sufficiently mind in my opinion
But then I remember a song by my old friend Rufus Wayneright
And um although the circumstances are different to mine I can really relate to how he talks about This absence with his father and the pain and the loss when there’s a schism between a father And a son it’s called dinner at eight