"Have you two met?” I didn’t think so. The elderly man on my right was introduced as John Duffield, a £500m City titan. I smiled politely. “What does your husband do?” he barked. My husband? “What does it matter?” I stuttered. “He’s sitting over there.” Had it not occurred to him that I might have an interesting career of my own to talk about? I explained that I had a good job on a newspaper. He was a successful financier and we soon fell into conversation. But however charming he was, I could not shake off the memory of his opening remark. What stunned me was his assumption that as a woman at that dinner, I must be the wife of a powerful man. I couldn’t believe how out of touch he was with the world we all live in now.

These days, outside top City circles, being a man does not signify first-class status. In much of modern life, maleness means coming second. For instance, boys are now less likely than girls to succeed in school and are less likely to apply for and get into university. Last year there were 172,925 female undergraduates and only 141,643 male. Teenage boys are more likely to take drugs, drink, commit crime and exhibit antisocial behaviour. They also tend to spend longer out of work and in training. Society has become “feminised” in the skills it values: multitasking, communication, sitting still in front of a computer — all these play to female strengths rather than male ones. And accordingly, the social status of masculinity is changing. In many areas it is men who are now The Second Sex, as Simone De Beauvoir, the feminist philosopher, described women in 1949.

Mark Penn, the author of the influential book Microtrends, has highlighted the phenomenon of what he calls Guys Left Behind: “Sure, most leadership positions are still filled by men, and there are lots of super-achieving men out there,” he says. “But on the other end of the spectrum, serious problems are brewing for the future of men.” According to statistics, he says, men are 15 times more likely to go to prison, more likely to be obese, alcoholic, unemployed and die earlier.

“When it comes to earning what you learn, guys aren’t learning what they need to — women are getting almost 60% of the college degrees conferred… This college gap could be the one that spells the most serious problem for guys, and over time can be at the root of a lot of increased frustration and even crime... The lifestyles and habits that worked so well for men in more dangerous times may not be working so well for them in the information age. In every age from the caves right on through the second world war, it worked for men to take big risks, have short attention spans and be driven by ego. These days, those things are more likely to get in the way of doing a good job.”

I am 38 and, like many women of my generation, the main breadwinner in my family. I’m sure Duffield regards me as some kind of curiosity, but I’m not. I am merely ahead of the curve. Coming up behind me are legions of high-powered, high-earning women. These are the alpha queens, former “graduate princesses” who, having done much better at school and university than their male peers, a decade further down the line are now landing the best jobs too.

At board level, where men like Duffield reign supreme, women are still largely unrepresented, but lower down they are gaining ground in the professions and business. Last year almost 60% of new solicitors were women. Ten years ago there were 64,737 female and 132,577 male doctors; those figures have now risen to 94,782 females and 136,876 males. Even in male-dominated fields such as investment banking 30% of the intake is female. And self-employed “lipstick entrepreneurs”(more than 1m, up 17% since 2000) are bucking the recession, according to a recent report for the Federation of Small Businesses, which predicts: “More female board members, more female millionaires. The pay gap and glass ceiling will become obsolete.” The alpha queens are on the march.

This female empowerment is a global phenomenon; in America there are now more women than men in the workforce. The credit crunch over there has been called the Mancession: four out of every five jobs lost in the US over the past two years have been held by men. It is blue-collar jobs in manufacturing and construction that are haemorrhaging, while white-collar work in increasingly female-dominated fields, such as education and health, is holding steady or even growing.

Society has changed incredibly quickly: work, schools and the family were once arranged around men, allowing them to excel. But these days careers are less linear; structures are less hierarchical, and in an increasingly mechanised and computerised world, men’s traditional strengths are less prized. Indeed, it is now often women who seem to have all the choices: if they want a stellar career, companies will increasingly fast-track them as it becomes more important to be seen to have women in senior roles (even the Conservative party is at it); but if as a woman you decide to work flexibly or part-time, or not to work at all, that is fine too. Feminism was about giving women the right to choose — these days it often seems as if females hold all the cards.

Julia Margo, head of research at the think-tank Demos, is compiling a report called The Lost Boys. “At school, GCSE attainment is 10% lower for boys, and fewer young men than women graduate from university,” she says. “Many have put this down to educational approach and the curriculum being more suited to girls. Increasing ‘feminisation’ of the teaching profession is more and more frequently cited.

“In policy terms, the key areas of interest in the past few years have been women-centric: teen pregnancy, closing the gender gap, work-life balance, as governments strive to make us a more equal society. But what if we have now changed the playing field so much that it is actually boys who are getting a raw deal? Boys and men who are unsure of their place in the world? Boys feeling excluded and grasping for new roles and ways of being, as women forge ahead? The recession has particularly hit male workers in the UK, too.”

Boys may still aspire to become engineers and scientists, doctors and lawyers, but compared with girls, they aren’t making the grades. And in a society where girls win all the educational prizes, what rewards are there for the boys? The feminised face of the working world is forcing men to re-examine their own roles both within employment and outside it. Could those changes be good for them, giving them freedom, choice and opportunity, just as the sexual revolution changed the lives of women? It’s when children come along that things get complicated for men and women. They earn similar wages in their twenties, but when women start families the pay gap opens up. Traditionally, it has been the woman who, as the lower earner, cuts back on work (and pay) when she reproduces — but what happens when it is the woman who has the higher-paying job? The decision often comes down to economics. Successful women are following the well-worn path of the successful man down the ages: finding a loving, nurturing partner who will keep the home fires burning.

The number of stay-at-home dads has doubled in a decade to 200,000. I went to meet some of them on a beautiful day at London Zoo. The sun shone over the new gorilla house. There were the usual mums with tired eyes and large coffees, chatting to their toddlers in buggies. But my eyes were drawn to the young men proudly showing their charges the attractions. These were the househusbands I had arranged to meet.

First was Jeremy Layton-Henry, 37, who looks after his son, Lucan, full time. Layton-Henry has studied Chinese medicine but no longer practises. “With the credit crunch, lots of my work dried up,” he says. “Childcare is so expensive. It didn’t feel right to pay someone else to look after Lucan, so I’m doing it. And since I started six months ago, three more dad friends have started doing this.”

One of those fathers, he explains, has just qualified as a solicitor. It makes sense for him to be the carer because his wife earns £800,000 in the City. The recession is driving this trend. The other two fathers used to be estate agents but lost their jobs. “I still don’t think it’s accepted for a man to do this. But it’s much more acceptable than it was. I feel like we’re trailblazers.” Also on childcare duty at the zoo is Layton-Henry’s friend from university, John Philips, a 36-year-old teacher. He works two days a week and spends the rest of his time looking after their daughters, Katie, nearly three, and Charlotte, 18 months, while his wife, pregnant with their third child, works full-time as a management consultant. “We always knew this would happen. My earnings are nowhere near equal to my wife’s level, and of course we want a certain lifestyle.

I started looking after Katie while I was doing my Masters, and then Charlotte came along, and now another one [is on the way], so I’ll be doing it until they go to school. My wife and I are a team, equals. She totally respects my contribution; that’s why it works.”

We laugh about what the correct term is for a stay-at-home dad. “Other men think we’re sex toys, kept men, playthings of our wives,” he says with a wink. The term he prefers is DILF (Dad I’d like to f***), which is, he says, what his parents’ group in south London calls him. These guys are definitely red-blooded, certainly not sensitive new-man types. The banter is constant as are the racy jokes. Let’s call them New Blokes.

With Duffield’s assumptions ringing in my mind, I ask them what other men make of them. “They see it as a cushy number,” says Layton-Henry. “Many of them who are in offices all day feel jealous of us, that we are out having fun with the kids while they are slogging away. I feel sorry for my wife, she had a hard time going back to work, but she loves her job and I think it was easier for her knowing that Lucan was with me. I’ve had to be very supportive; I make her supper and give her a backrub when she gets home.”

The most opprobrium comes from older men. John Philips says his 70-year-old father-in-law, a former doctor, can be hostile, saying things like: “Call yourself a man? You make a good wife.”

Both men do a full round of Aqua Tots, Sure Start nursery groups, Baby Yoga and singing workshops. The main attraction of these groups is adult conversation with other parents: “Not talking about anything to do with children,” says Layton-Henry. “My God, you can get boring!”

Are they just a middle-class anomaly? Philips becomes indignant. “I moved away from my working-class roots in Wales so I could have long hair, be allowed to be a different kind of man. But what’s interesting is that, because of mass unemployment and economic depression down there, what jobs there are often easier for women to get and there are lots of men looking after their kids, like me.” I decided I would go there and find out — but more of New Welsh Valley Man later.

Perhaps Layton-Henry and Philips are the lucky ones. The feminised society has been good to them. They can afford to take career breaks in just the same way as women have always done. They can be positive, loving dads. But the darker side of a culture where men are underachieving or absent in many younger male lives was made very clear to me when I went to visit the bleak estates of Moston in north Manchester.

This is a traditional working-class area that has seen waves of new immigrants. It’s the land of Lidl, Moneygram, Pizza Planet and the chippie. The police station is fortified with wire, and the school I visit looks like a prison. I have come to talk to Barry Fishwick, a superhead who has already turned around several tough schools in Warrington and has just been appointed to transform North Manchester High School for Boys into a new Creative and Media Academy. He fizzes with energy, optimism and wisdom founded in experience. “The real problem for the boys who come here,” he says, “is the total absence of any male role models in their lives. Often the first time they come across a male authority figure is when they arrive here in secondary school. The hormones are kicking in, so they are full of aggression, but they’ve never seen any control mechanisms for that, or seen men using their strength to protect.”

The psychologist Steve Biddulph, author of Raising Boys, says studies show that, around the age of six, “Boys seem to lock on to their dad, or stepdad or whichever male is around, and want to be with him, to learn from him and copy him. They want to ‘study how to be male’.”

The dearth of male teachers in primary schools and the high numbers of single mothers in areas such as Moston leave many boys with no such father figure. Meanwhile, many relationships break down because of domestic violence, leaving boys with a sense that men are hated and hate them.

Earlier this year, The Centre for Social Justice, the think-tank set up by Iain Duncan Smith to examine social breakdown, published a report on street gangs called Dying to Belong. It noted that boys growing up with physically or emotionally absent fathers often suffered from feelings of rejection and inadequacy. Their masculinity was learnt from alpha-male imagery in the culture. From this came the macho culture of “respect” which fuels so many murderous petty disputes.

The gang influence was clear on the boys at Moston. Many wore their trousers round their hips, a fashion that began in America when young men were released from custody without their belts. Another signifier of this kind of culture is golf gloves (worn to stop traces of explosives being left on the hands when handling guns). Many of the young black men had hair shaved with totemic patterns. Fishwick explained that the majority of boys at his school were the children of second- or even third-generation single mothers. “Often there are no men in their family constellations at all. There are many more kids coming through to us in schools like this who are uncertain of their place in the structure of things. They have no social skills — some, aged 11, can’t use a knife or fork. They have only ever eaten takeaway meals.” He describes children witnessing aggression and domestic violence, often looking after younger siblings while fending for themselves. Many have never known anyone with a job.

A few weeks ago Fishwick’s lads played a football match against Altrincham Grammar School. “You could see the deprivation. Our boys are pale and thin, or obese, with not much hair. By contrast the grammar-school boys are big, hairy and well-nourished. They look completely different. I’d so love them to win. They hadn’t a chance this time, but we’ll get there.”

Sport is essential to these boys’ development. Many of them have never been shown how to channel or curb their aggression. As studies of bringing up boys show, it is through rough play that fathers teach their sons how to control their strength. “We have high levels of testosterone in boys who have never learnt to resolve tensions in any other ways than through violence,” says Fishwick. “So, yes, we have a few fights.”

I fear “a few fights” is an understatement. The world these boys inhabit is one of aggression and menace. Kid British is a successful pop group who grew up in north Manchester and had a hit song, Our House is Dadless. Life on these estates, according to singer James Mayer, is one of constant vigilance to avoid getting beaten up. “The first thing anyone wants to buy is a car, so you don’t have to walk the streets.”

That aggression spills into school. When the bell goes the boys pour out of their classes. There is a distinct air of menace. When I try to meet their eyes, they avoid all contact or stare right through me. We go into a classroom, where I ask some of them what they want to be when they grow up. The cool, gangster-looking kid at the back says: “I want to be a thoracic surgeon.” The others want to be firemen, roofers. “I’m going to be unemployed,” says one wag. They laugh. I ask one of the young female teachers if she ever feels frightened there. “No,” she says. “They’re good kids when you get to know them.”

Fishwick believes there is yet another problem facing his youngsters: the education system itself. Is the curriculum weighted against boys? “I have spent 30 years teaching in mixed schools. In my experience the system favours the girls; they are more sophisticated in communication and emotional awareness. They mature earlier. At 13 or 14, pupils have to make choices that will affect the rest of their lives. The girls are in a much better place to do that. And changes to the curriculum also play to their strengths.”

North Manchester High School is just a snapshot of what is happening to boys brought up in largely jobless communities by single mothers. The latest figures show that one in five fail to get at least five GCSEs, the government’s benchmark of basic secondary school achievement, and 10% of white boys (23,860 pupils) ended their education without getting GCSEs or equivalent of any grade. White boys eligible for free school meals do worse in their GCSEs than all other pupil groups apart from travellers’ children and those in care. The only education measure in which they come top? Permanent exclusion from school. There were 4,720 white boys expelled last year. The next group? Afro-Caribbeans, at 250. Fishwick, however, remains optimistic that he can change his boys’ lives. The solution, he says, is structure and engagement. He cites the success of groups such as Motiv, an award-winning social enterprise that has improved school attendance levels (the key indicator for upping educational attainment) by offering rewards to those who turn up every day.

Lee Stanley, 39, is one of its directors. “The pressures on some of these kids, what is going on at home… sometimes it’s a miracle that they turn up to school at all,” he says. “When I was growing up most of us had two parents, we were aspirational, Mum had our tea on the table. Now all that’s changed.” Stanley tells me about being mobbed by boys when they discovered he was a music producer. “They couldn’t believe I came from Moston and I have a good job. You have to make them believe that it’s possible for them too… Many have never met a man from round here who does a job they would want to do. I want them to know that it’s possible.”

Fishwick agrees that showing boys the “possible” is essential if the cycle of deprivation is to be broken. “One spark”, as he puts it, can be all it takes. Having set up a school box office where pupils can get free tickets, he takes them to performances in the city centre in a school minibus. For many, it is the first time they have been out of their neighbourhood. He is also launching an ambitious music programme where everyone will have the chance to learn an instrument, and he will introduce a mentoring scheme in which older boys guide younger boys. “This can have a really transformative effect on both boys,” he says. Exactly. For visionary heads such as Fishwick, and social entrepreneurs such as Stanley, education is not the only objective: school should transform boys’ life chances.

A week after Moston, I headed for Wales. Llanelli was once a thriving industrial town, but these days 20% of the men here are unemployed. There are 1,568 men claiming jobseeker’s allowance but only 439 women. Many of the industries that used to employ men — steel, copper and tin works, mines and mills — have closed; the jobs that remain are mostly in local government or tourism and tend to be seasonal and to favour women.

For sure this town is not as bleak as the housing estates of Moston, but its problems are real enough. Yet here, in the unlikely setting of a semidetached house in a rundown area, I glimpsed a possible new future for Britain’s forgotten men. It made me hopeful that, just as women transcended the strict gender stereotypes that once made them the Second Sex, men could too. As de Beauvoir put it in her writings about gender, “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.” These men had helped each other become different and happier kinds of men.

Every week these fathers meet under the watchful aegis of Paul Andrews, who runs a group funded by a charity, Action for Children, and Carmarthenshire council. They gather in a room fitted out as a crèche, with toy washing machines and cookers, paints, crayons and smocks. The garden is full of tricycles and dolls’ houses. While the kids play, the men talk.

All the men in the group have had troubles. Nick’s wife left him with two tiny children; he was too agoraphobic to leave his house. Marcus was depressed. (“They called me the hermit crab when I first came here.”)Anthony, a big, jolly man, gave up work when his twins — who are both disabled — were born 15 years ago. Peter’s daughter has been in trouble with drugs. He has long hair, tattoos, a gammy leg and doesn’t speak much. Jason, with his shaved head topped by a red plait, has three children under eight: Rhys, who is autistic, Angel and Brook.

All are unemployed; this group is the highlight of their week. To begin the session, Paul Andrews gets his blokes to write something positive about themselves and their children. The men all lean on children’s books. Anthony’s is that kid’s classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “I’m Amazing Anthony,” he says. “I’m reliable and helpful, I pride myself on that. My twins are doing their GCSEs and they are getting their heads down.”

Martin, whose wife has a job caring for the elderly for the local social services, describes himself as “Merry Martin… I help other people. I look after my grandchildren — Leon, six, and Courtney, 18 weeks. The big one doesn’t like sharing but he’s getting better. And my 15-year-old is doing better at school. He said to me last week, ‘Dad, you listen better with your mouth closed.’” The men laugh. Then it is Marcus’s turn. Handsome, with a cheeky grin, he is the group’s star: “I’m mighty Marcus,” he says proudly. “I just did a parachute jump to raise money for the group. I’ve always been afraid of heights and I’ve never been in a plane before. But I did it. And I’ve got a loving wife and three beautiful, loving kids who will help others in difficulty.” The men smile and say “Well done!” They are proud of Marcus. He is garrulous and funny — yet only a year before he had been clammed-up in the corner. He still has dark days, but he tries to write down what he’s feeling as Andrews suggests. And “those days” don’t come so often now.

The meeting is punctuated by supportive laughter. At one point the men boast about how handy they are in the kitchen, talking of how to get roast potatoes really crispy. Sometimes the group threatens to get a little out of hand, but Andrews continues calmly with the readings and work sheets. “Invest time in your kids and you’ll avoid running on empty — the benefits of a positive relationship will fill your emotional fuel tanks,” he reads. The advice is all practical.

(If you feel you’re going to lose it, go for a walk, go outside, etc.) After an hour or so, the group breaks for coffee and bacon butties. Marcus comes over to chat. “Without this I’d be stuck in a rut,” he says. “There are plenty of groups like this for women, but hardly any for men. It’s slowly becoming acceptable for men to think about feelings and problems or discuss things.” Jason adds: “What we didn’t learn from our own dads, we’re learning here now. Dads should be protectors, but gentle.” I get the impression that “gentle” is not a word that could be applied to most of the fathering they received.

Others explain that their fathers were always absent, out working to pay the bills. As one puts it, “Wife in kitchen and bedroom, tea on table after work, about sums it up.” All agree that men don’t just want to earn the money and go out to the pub any more. And, as Anthony emphasises, “Even if we wanted that model, it doesn’t work any more, because there aren’t any jobs. Being unemployed for 15 years, I’ve had to relearn what it is to be a man. When the twins were born we both stayed off work to look after them and it’s been so much fun. That’s what it’s all about, you can’t get that time back.” These men are redefining what it is to be a man. Indeed, one of them, Jason, made the kind of remark I would have expected from a particularly strident stay-at-home mum. “Being a parent is a full-time job. You aren’t a proper parent if you just get up in the morning and hand your child over to a childminder.”

Profoundly inspiring, these men were entirely comfortable in their own manhood, displaying the best kind of manly virtues: protecting their children, respecting their wives, providing for their families by cooking and caring. They were defining a father’s role not by the money he brings home but by the part he plays in raising the next generation. They were proud of their children doing well at school; proud that they were moulding them into better people. And proud at how much they had been able to help each other and their communities.

Their qualities are not new — anyone who has a loving husband, father or brother knows how great maleness can be — but often in our society men’s gentler virtues are drowned out by violence and machismo. Perhaps being allowed to be competently caring — and be respected for it — will be a step forward, not backwards, for men; perhaps this group of men in Llanelli really do point the way to a new male paradigm. After all, if women are going to be free to work and engage their brains in the professional sphere, men are going to have to pick up some of the domestic, family slack. Many men of my generation are already doing so — and enjoying it. There has been a quiet revolution in how men behave in the domestic sphere and the quality of relationships they have with their children.

When feminists set out on the road to equality a century ago, they didn’t want to become men, they wanted to be judged on equal terms. They fought to do the jobs men did — and they wanted men to do some of the emotional work they did. Men and women may be different, but in our essential humanity we are the same. We all want what is best for our families, to raise happy children, to live the best, most interesting and fulfilling lives we can. The Llanelli men have found real happiness in living full lives with their families, redefining themselves by what they have to give rather than what they earn. If we are going to ensure that men do not become “Guys Left Behind”, as Penn puts it, society has to start working out what men need to get back on track.

Many of the men I spoke to talked of being excluded during the birth of their children. One, who was with his wife throughout her 36-hour labour, said he wasn’t offered so much as a cup of coffee. Others described how midwives plied the mothers with leaflets but ignored the fathers. Certainly the rite of passage into parenthood has become very mother-centric — more must be done around birth to ensure that men feel an integral part of caring for children from the start. Some Scandinavian countries now allow men and women equal leave to look after a new baby. Britain is probably not ready for that, but Finland, where 90% of men take paternity leave, “has captured a culture change” according to Julia Margo at Demos. Her forthcoming report recommends that younger boys (particularly those with single mothers) spend time with positive male role models and that Britain should introduce mentors in schools. “The hugely successful Canadian Big Brothers Big Sisters programme brings adult mentors into schools and has been particularly effective in poorer provinces where there are high rates of teen pregnancy and absent fathers.”

If women continue to dominate the learning sphere, more men are going to have to learn the Llanelli lesson. Perhaps Duffield and his peers are the last generation of men who will be able to assume that they rule the world. In future no man will be able to ask his question. But what makes me profoundly optimistic are the extraordinary men I met while researching this piece; there are remarkable role models out there waiting to lead our lost boys into the future.

They may not be lost, however, so much as tentatively finding their way to a new kind of manhood. If the relationships of the future include massage, supper — crispy potatoes, even — things are looking up, not least for the exhausted career woman who walks through the door in the evening. As Simone de Beauvoir said in 1949, “The free woman is just being born.” Could the same now be true of men?

BETA BLOKES

In 2009, 45.6% of boys achieved five A*-C grades at GCSE (including English and maths) compared with 54% of girls.

Source: Department for Children Schools and Families

The number of men looking after their family in July 2009 was 206,000. (Office of National Statistics, Labour Force Survey)

62% of fathers believe they should spend more time looking after their children. (Equality and Human Rights Commission survey, 2009)

Men spend 53 hours a week on household chores and childcare compared with just 34 hours in 2005. (Legal and General ‘Value of a Dad’ survey, June 2009)

In 2006, 80% of crimes in the UK were committed by men, and 17-year-old boys were most likely to commit serious criminal offences. In 2005, 19-year-old males received the highest number of convictions. (Office of National Statistics)

In 2006, 18.3 men per 100,000 died of alcohol related diseases compared to 8.8 of women. (Office of National Statistics)

Men are more likely than women to be overweight and have taken class-A drugs. (Office of National Statistics)

THE KID BRITISH BOYS

James Mayer: ‘My mum and dad got divorced when I was four. My dad was around but he never gave me any encouragement, never said, “Son, you’re good at making music. You’ve got a talent; you should give it a really good shot.” The only person I looked up to was my next door neighbour, who was seven or eight years older than me. He was like an older brother and would let me hang out with him and his mates. They would listen to jungle music and smoke all day, but for whatever reason, I wasn’t interested in the weed. I’d have been lost if it hadn’t been for him and his passion for music.

‘As young kids playing on the streets we were surrounded by drugs and I’ve seen a lot of childhood friends spiral down into addiction. I was lucky because when I got into my teens I started to get serious about my music, and my mum would always back me. Even when I was banging out loud tunes in my room she wouldn’t mind because she knew I was safer at home than I would ever be messing about on the streets.

‘Where we’re from in Manchester, kids don’t really have long-term aspirations or goals. Guys think they’ve made it when they buy their first motor. I’d have loved to learn an instrument at school, but I was never given the chance. You need people to come in and talk to you about your career options, you need someone to come in and offer you realistic aspirations — not everyone can be a pop star or TV presenter, but you can get involved behind the scenes. All we got was a careers adviser who would say something like, “You’re quite athletic, do sports science.” It wasn’t inspiring.’

THE NEW BLOKE

Paul Andrews, 35, a former sailor and builder, runs a fathers’ group in Llanelli, and has just been voted Father of the Year in Carmarthenshire by a local radio station

‘I joined the Navy at 17 and worked as a marine engineer until I was 24. It was a typically blokie environment: the job was physically draining and there was always plenty of blue banter between the lads; there were loads of nights out on the town in foreign countries, too, which mainly involved heavy drinking and chasing the local girls.

‘The atmosphere was pretty tribal and ruthless. The younger guys like myself would look up to the older members of the crew because they were bigger, stronger and had been in the navy for years. To us back then, they were “real” men.

‘I’ll always remember the lads making a great deal of fun out of one particular guy. He would spend all his spare time writing love letters to his wife. Looking back on it, he was being incredibly romantic, but back then he got absolutely slaughtered. My attitudes changed completely when I had a family.

‘Growing up I didn’t see much of my father. He would work, have a few pints down the pub and then come home, expecting his tea to be on the table. When I had my own children I promised myself I wouldn’t be like that. I want my kids to look back on their childhood and see their dad as someone who took them to the park, took them camping, who’d support them through thick and thin.

“I became involved in the fathers’ group because I started going to the local family centre with one of my children, and I was the only bloke there. I’d been out of work for a while and after being in one manual job after another I really wanted to work with children. A job came up at the family centre, I applied and I’ve never looked back. I’ve got a great work-life balance now and I can organise my work around my kids’ lives, which is great.

“Men are never comfortable with talking about their thoughts and feelings, and the dads here are always hesitant about joining the group. In Llanelli men have always seen their role as being the breadwinner and disciplinarian of the family — domesticity’s not really their thing — but once they’re through that door the change I see in them is huge. They become more confident with their children and in their masculinity. They develop into men who are as comfortable with washing the dishes and doing the vacuum cleaning as they are with downing a few pints in the pub with their mates.

‘If I’d got some blokes together 20 years ago and said, “Right lads, let’s have a dads’ group,” I would have been laughed out of town. But attitudes are slowly changing round here. I really think it’s important for men to spend time with their children. I can honestly say that looking after my own and running this fathers’ group has made me not only a better parent but a better man.’

Interview by Anmar Frangoul