You might know him as Curly. Born in Borenore, in central New South Wales, in 1935, one of four siblings of Roy and Doris. The smiley little blighter did indeed have a headful of curly hair and was anointed such early in life and it stuck. I don't think I ever heard my mother call him Thomas, not even Tom, to most people he was Curly, to my friends Mr Fitz, to my sister and I, he was simply Dad.

It's only with the perspective of an adult, and that of a parent, that you can look back at your childhood and truly appreciate what your parents did for you.

If I'm honest Dad was absent for much of my childhood. He wouldn't argue. He worked as a travelling salesman for a variety of companies over the years - we learned to fold napkins when he worked for Bowater Scott and we were turned off smoking when he worked for Philip Morris (and this is why plain packaging will never work, I shared a bedroom with more cigarette advertising than I care to remember and still believe smoking is a disgusting addiction) - and was on the road more often than not.

When he was home he spent quite a deal of time at the pub. God bless him. It was the 1970s and we lived in a small country town and that's what dads did. We didn't know any different and we were happy (although with the perspective of a wife, I sometimes wonder whether my mother was, and when they separated after 25 years of marriage I realised that perhaps she wasn't.)

This is all making it sound terribly bleak. It wasn't. There were plenty of good times for, at his core, he was, and is still, a good man.

I can remember him, on particularly hot summer nights, heading outside as my sister and I went to bed to hose down the house. He had this theory that if he could cool down the bricks, the house would cool down, and we'd all find it easier to sleep. I'd peek out my window and watch him, the red tip of his cigarette flickering off and on, standing there, usually bare-chested, wearing nothing more than his Stubbies and a pair of thongs to avoid the bindi-eyes he spent decades trying to eradicate to no avail, hosing the house and I'd think he was an absolute nutter. But I realise now he was only trying to do something to make his family more comfortable.

For this is what most fathers want to do. It's just how they do it that varies. For men of his generation, and yes I'm making grand generalisations here, this is how they did it. By doing something. There was none of this talking about your feelings business. I only remember seeing him cry once and that was the day he came down to Canberra to tell me my mother had moved out.

Dad also lets you know he loves you by worrying. Is there a condition that manifests itself in excessive worrying? If so, my father has it. It's gotten worse in recent years I reckon, every phone call is peppered with some question about my well-being.

When those advertisements came out, I think they were for something like a frozen meal, and the woman went, ''yes, Dad, I am looking after myself''', I thought, that's us. But I realise now the worrying has always been there. Whether it was nagging us to do up our duffle coats - remember the black ones with the wooden ties in front we all wore to school in the late '70s? - or whether it was ringing his mate who owned the corner store we always stopped at as we walked home from school to see if we had checked in, he was always on our case. This is because he loved us.

Why else would he get out of bed in the middle of the night to come and pick up his eldest daughter from a boy's house. A boy she was quite keen on who also happened to be the star second-rower of the league team he coached. Only then to kick on with said boy's father until breakfast time, while his daughter slept on the lounge.

Why else would he embrace two daughters and not have too many regrets he had no sons. He was a man who liked man stuff - sport, fishing, drinking - and he taught his daughters how to do them all. I thank him to this day that he taught me how to bowl spin, how to box, how to bait a fish hook without squirming, how to drink beer, and still love me when he realised I wasn't very good at any of them.

It will be one of my life's regrets that I didn't have a better relationship with him as an adult but I left home at 18 and never really went back. It's wholly my fault that I don't see him more often.

He's still living in the house in which we grew up but that's not home anymore. I find too many excuses not to get back there and for as much as I nag him about coming here to see us, he hasn't been well enough to do that for years. There are still regular phone calls, we send him photos and cards, but it's not the same.

I wish he had a better relationship with my children, wish he could teach them to bowl, to box, to drink beer. About four years ago my daughter, then seven, interviewed him about his life when he was seven, and for as much as he couldn't remember, to listen to them (and I recorded it) chat to each other about his life was a special thing.

But life is too short for regrets. I'm not sure how long we'll have left to be honest, so we treasure each contact we have. He can still be the most infuriating man alive, and I lose patience with him too often. But I miss him. More than I'd like to admit.

He's my Dad. And he loves me. And I love him. Happy days, old man.

Twitter: @karenhardyCT