If you have a dear old dad, count yourself lucky.

During an informal poll on the streets of Hamilton, The Royal Gazette struggled to find people who were happy with their fathers.

One person described their dad as “an old fart”.

A young girl we approached said: “We don’t know where my father is.”

“I don’t celebrate Father’s Day,” said another man, grimly.

Slowly though, the stories of the good dads emerged with two common threads: the great ones are always there for their children, and most of them tell embarrassing jokes.

Zoyaa Powell, 17: My father is a photographer for Bermynet. His name is Robert Daniels and I absolutely adore him. He likes swimming so we usually go swimming together at certain times of the year. He likes to crack jokes. He also likes to make the noise from the movie Predator. He makes the noise to scare us. He likes to sneak up on people and makes us all laugh.

Lucia Peniston, 43: My father, Bernardino Moreira, is the best dad in the world. He is reliable, dependable, and always there for us. I couldn’t imagine my life without him. We went swimming a lot together and picnicking with our family. Even in the winter we would go fishing. He worked at Riddell’s Bay Golf and Country Club for years. He is wonderful now with his five grandchildren. He likes to tell stories, and as we have gotten older some of those stories have become a little more colourful. He is a great storyteller. For Father’s Day we are planning a family barbecue.

Ben Mobley, 42: My father, Peter Mobley, was an architect in Manchester, England and died when I was 17. We had a good relationship. We used to fix up old motorcycles and cars together. There was one car that took us two years to fix up. We finished it when I was 16, not long before he died. My dad once had a harmless accident that involved him turning his car over on the motorway. It was to avoid running over a cat that turned out to be a plastic bag.

Lisa Reed, 43: My father, [former Progressive Labour Party MP] Walter Lister, always instilled in me the importance of family and community. He was a politician and we would often spend all of Saturday visiting people, some family and some not. At a young age he taught me to be his secretary and I was fielding calls from the community — at six years old. I learnt how to screen calls so that the more urgent ones could be dealt with immediately. The funny thing about my dad is that he is a massive tease. In our family, he invented a kind of tag game called Got You Last. We are planning a family barbecue to celebrate all the dads in our family.

Jan Bento, 80: My father, Jack Pace, was from Nova Scotia. He came to Bermuda and walked into the Windsor Hotel and saw my mother. He sat down next to her and never went back to the ship. Instead, he stayed here and they got married. He was a bartender at the Windsor Hotel and at many other places around Bermuda. The funny thing about him was that he was very fussy. Everything on the table had to be just right. I am the same way now.

Robert Bean, 66: I didn’t meet my father until I was 13. I loved him, he was my dad, but he never did anything for me. In my own life, I have tried to be a better father to my children, Robyn and Jamel. They are grown up now. My son was paralysed after a fall and lives at Summerhaven. I go up there every day, and cook for him and wash his clothes. My daughter lives abroad, so for Father’s Day I am hoping to borrow a car and take my son out for the day.