Andy Richardson: Too funny for words? You must be joking

The conversation couldn't have started more propitiously.

Dad wasn't done.

"And I tell you what. That thing you did about collective nouns was one of your best."

"Wow, thanks dad. That's great."

"The funniest thing was when you described city types as 'a bonus of bankers'. That was brilliant."

"Err, that wasn't me."

"What?"

"That was Toby, the guy I wrote about as being better than the rest of us."

"Oh."

"So you thought Toby's stuff was brilliant, not mine."

"I see."

There was a brief silence. Dad made the next move.

"Ahahahahahahahaha," he exploded with laughter. "Well, you can tell that Toby he's brilliant."

"Erm, okay."

I love my dad. My dad's my hero. For a short while I transferred my 'number one hero status' to a woman who'd been particularly brave. But then she behaved with the integrity of the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and I realised she wasn't my hero after all. There'd only ever been one, really, and that was my dad.

When I was six, we were asked by our teacher at Wednesbury Oak Junior and Infant School to write an essay about our hero. The rest of the kids wrote about Kenny Dalglish. Some wrote about Noddy Holder. Others wrote about Gary Glitter – and lived to regret it. I never understood Glitter's appeal: when a man turns up for Christmas dressed as turkey, you know he's not right. I, however, wrote about my dad. And I think the old fella's probably still got a copy of that formative essay.

The course of father-son relations never did run entirely smoothly, however. My favourite exposition on the subject is contained in the novel Fathers and Sons by the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, but it's far from being the funniest. That award goes to John Sullivan, the writer of Only Fools and Horses, Citizen Smith and Just Good Friends.

John was a working class south Londoner with few airs and graces. His own father, also called John, was an odd job man who ducked and dived to make ends meet.

John senior would do a little painting and decorating, a little building. He'd scratch around as a general fixer, doing small building jobs for anyone who'd pay him.

On one occasion, he was asked to clean a chandelier. He arrived at a palatial home and spied two ornate glass chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. While he and a lad stood beneath chandelier A, the workmate in the room above loosened the catch on chandelier B. It fell to the floor and smashed into a thousand pieces. John snr was very nearly ruined financially.

He told John jnr the story shortly after his son had started writing episodes of Only Fools and Horses. And he ended the description with the following retort: "And don't you ever put that in your bleedin' show. That incident nearly bankrupted me. So don't you put that on the TV, alright."

John snr then threw in an unwise opinion. "Anyway, that Only Fools and Horses is rubbish. I don't watch your show. It ain't no good."

John jnr told the story to David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst and other members of the Only Fools and Horses team. He told them, too, that his father didn't think much of the show and never watched it. And, predictably, the cast told him to ignore his father's advice and write an episode about the falling chandelier. "It's comedy gold, John."

John jnr ruminated on his cast's views and came round to their way of thinking. Against his better judgement, he wrote an Only Fools and Horses episode based on the falling chandelier. The episode, A Touch of Glass, was the first in the series to attract more than 10 million viewers and in 2000 was voted the best British comedy moment in a nationwide poll.

When A Touch of Glass screened, John jnr sat at home to watch it. As the credits rolled at the end of the episode, his phone rang. It was his dad.

John jnr's heart sank. 'He's going to kill me,' he thought. 'He told me not to include the story in the episode and now look what I've gone and done. He'll cut me off without a penny'.

"John," said John snr.

"Yes dad?"

"I've just watched that Only Fools and Horses programme of yours. . ."

John jnr waited for the axe to fall.

There was a long pause.

"Alright, it was bleedin' funny. . ."

And both men laughed.

My dad doesn't know Toby. But he knows that Toby's jokes are better than mine. And I'm grateful for his honesty. Because, to be honest, I'd agree. A 'bonus of bankers' is a damn good line.