Exactly a year ago today at 3.15pm, I was on the Ferry to Larne, going home to visit my sick mother, when I received a call to say that she had passed away.

How to tell the children, who looked at me knowing the news was not good?

Our CEO DAVID DRYSDALE shares some shocking personal news – and looks at the road ahead for Fathers Network Scotland and the Year of the Dad.

Hello all

Late last week I was told that I’ve got a rare and aggressive form of cancer (which explains the back pain I’ve been experiencing over the last few months). I’m now in a bed in the Western General hospital in Edinburgh having been pumped full of morphine and chemotherapy drugs.

Birth parents never forget the children they have lost to adoption. ROB BROWN tells the moving story of his search for the son he thought he’d never meet.

I was 18 when I fathered my first child. When my girlfriend first told me that she was pregnant, I felt very happy about becoming a father.

COLM BLACK talks honestly about the effect of burnout – and the everyday struggles of being a dad at home.

Exile, says the writer Eugene Peterson, is the experience of being where we do not wish to be. It can experienced at many levels: missing the last bus home, a dip in a relationship, the loss of a job, not being picked for a team. It is an experience of emotional and/or physical dislocation: I am where I do not wish to be. In exile.

Researching fatherhood in the context of social disadvantage, KAREN MAXWELL expected to be coaxing emotionally-repressed men out of their shells. But her “hard to reach” dads proved nothing of the kind…

In National Adoption Week, NICK THORPE reflects on adoptive fatherhood – the most challenging and fulfilling experience of his life…

Fathers Network Scotland founder DAVID DRYSDALE sees huge potential – and an invigorating challenge – for dads in the wake of Scotland’s independence vote.

Whatever result you wanted from the recent referendum, it’s hard to deny the electrifying change it has brought to the way we engage with our country.

Introducing NICK THORPE, journalist, travel writer, adoptive dad… and now National Development Officer for Fathers Network Scotland.

I love being a dad. It’s the hardest and richest thing I’ve ever done.

Sometimes I unexpectedly see

My long-dead Father

When I am fiddling.

Each time I close,

Each time I open

The curtains,

I see your picture

On top of the piano.