Firmly planting the umbrella in the sand, Sir Michael Parkinson shouted: “Could you make a decision where we’re going to put this b****y thing because I feel like I’m Trooping the bleeding Colour!”
The telly legend left his family in hysterics as the consummate professional struggled to find a space on the boiling Spanish beach that was packed with sunseekers.
Nearly 50 years on from that 1975 holiday, these precious memories are firmly treasured, as the family prepare to mark his death on August 16 last year at the age of 88.
Aged 88 when he died, the star had interviewed most of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities - including Muhammad Ali, David Beckham and comedian Rod Hull with puppet Emu, and Sir Rod Stewart - on his TV show.
At its peak,the show lured twelve million viewers to tune in on a Saturday night to watch guests from John Lennon to Muhammad Ali open up about their lives.
“At home, he was a different person,” Mike says. “It’s not like he walked downstairs to his theme tune.
“When we were growing up he was supercharged in his career, which meant there were times he wasn’t always there as much as we wanted him to be. He wasn’t perfect, he could be distant and was very much of his generation – not as hands-on as we expect dads to
be now.”
Becoming one of the world’s most renowned chat shows hosts wasn’t an obvious career path for a miner’s son from Cudworth, South Yorks.
Born in 1935, he left school with just two O levels before starting as a reporter on local newspapers and later moving to the Manchester Guardian and the Daily Express.
He began his glittering television career on current affairs programmes before Parkinson hit the screens, running on the BBC from 1971 to 1982, and later from January 1998, before switching to ITV1 from 2004 until he retired the show in 2007.
During those years, including stints on Australian television from 1979, he chatted to an estimated 2,000 celebrities. When asked who his dad’s favourite encounter was with, Mike suspects it would be Ali, who he interviewed four times.
Their first chat in 1971 is still one of the most famous in British TV history.
Ali, who had been beaten by Joe Frazier in “The Fight of the Century” six months earlier, left the audience captivated as he spoke of his experiences of racism.
And the final interview, in 1981, serves as a dreadful preview of Ali’s diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, as the once live-wire boxer slurred his words while trying to answer questions about brain damage.
Other highlights include his chat with Polish scientist Dr Jacob Bronowski who visited the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz where many of his relatives had died.
Or possibly one of the eighteen times he chatted with comedian Billy Connolly whose career was arguably launched by his bike joke on Parky’s show in 1975.
He also made headlines for awkward interviews, including, when he asked Helen Mirren if her “equipment” had hindered her being recognised as a serious actor
And in 2003, following a frosty chat with Sleepless in Seattle star Meg Ryan Sir Michael asked “if you were me, what would you do now?”. Ryan replied: “Just wrap it up?”
But Mike confidently predicts his least favourite interview would have been the one with Rod Hull and Emu in 1976, where he was playfully attacked by the entertainer’s puppet.
“Who would want to be attacked by a glove puppet and humiliated on TV?” Mike laughs as recalls his dad trying to stop him from showing that clip during the 20 years they worked together at Parky Productions.
Although he didn’t hate it, he would often say: “Sometimes people are remembered for things they’d rather forget!”
Meeting Mike at the pub leads to a run-in with Reverend Ainsley Swift who held his funeral service.
“Before the ceremony, Jimmy Tarbuck found out I was from Liverpool,” he adds. “And during the eulogy, he said, “Fancy Parky arranging for a scouser to take his funeral’ which made everyone laugh.”
So what was it about Parky that everyone loved?
“If you think about where he came from – the son of a working-class miner – to where he ended up, his is a story of hope,” Mike said.
“He had integrity, and there was a genuineness about him - people could trust him.
“People miss him and what he represented almost more than what he did. When people sat down to watch him or listen to him or read his work, it was like slipping into a warm bath.”
It’s possible the late chat show host had imposter syndrome in his glitzy media career due to his working-class background, with Mike suspecting he would have been “shocked by the public outpouring after his death.”
So what would he say if he knew, he also inspired me as a young working-class journalist, whose ancestors were miners, to follow their dreams?
“He would say that he was lucky to have two parents who made him raise his sights above the pit head gear and encouraged him to follow his dreams no matter how outlandish they seemed,” Mike replies.
“But if his story inspired one person to try and overcome their background and follow their outlandish dreams, then all that he achieved, even being attacked by an Emu, was all worthwhile.”