The origins of Father’s Day are fairly modern and were borne as a result of a terrible mining disaster in West Virginia USA in 1907. Many children lost their fathers, and a day of remembrance was arranged in their honour, whilst this was a one-time event it led to calls for a national day to celebrate fathers and their contributions to family life. The UK adopted Father’s Day far more recently, in the years that followed the second world war when we became more influenced by American culture. As with Mother’s Day it was retailers who, seeing the money-making potential pushed to make the day the national day it is now.

On Sunday we opened our outdoor bar, The Father’s Inn to celebrate Father’s Day in Priors Hall style.

It was a wonderful day, we made use of the marquee, decorating it with Father’s Day banners and balloons. The bar was fully stocked, and the bar snacks were plentiful. It was a pleasure to see families coming together to celebrate their fathers.

We kicked off the afternoon with some fabulous entertainment from Jenny Simmons, everyone sang along, there was even some dancing. We followed this with a quiz and games, it was a lot of fun.

We received some generous donations of beer from Potbelly Brewery in Kettering and also from our lifestyle manager Claire, Malc Hawley and Kerry Regis, we were blown away by your kindness, thank you.

Planning an event such as this is always a little worrying when we have the English weather to contend with, but the sun shone on our wonderful fathers and their families, and we had a brilliant time. We will definitely be opening our outdoor bar again very soon.