Celebrating Father’s Day – 19th June blog by guest Lynsey Shaw and Eleanor Clarke
It will soon be time for children, young and old, in numerous countries across the world to celebrate Father’s Day, traditionally earmarked for the third Sunday in June. The event, whose history can be traced back to Catholic Europe in the early 1500s, is by no means a UK-only festivity. As well as the US and Canada, Father’s Day is also observed in countries including France, Argentina, Greece, India, Ireland and Mexico. And, certainly in the UK, the importance of the event – and the buying of cards and presents around it – has grown significantly in recent years. In 2021, for example, retail spending on Father’s Day was estimated to have reached £951 million, compared with £743 million in 2017 (D. Tighe, https://statista.com ). That’s a lot of happily loved ‘Dads’ across the nation being told how special they are on a day that is just for them. But Father’s Day, particularly because it is so widely enjoyed, can also be a time of sadness, specifically for those for whom it is
