Thirteen years ago, Kevin Milne proudly introduced Weekly readers to his wee daughter Tommie, feeling slightly nervous about becoming a dad again at 52 and bemused by the fact that he would one day be raising a teenager as a pensioner.
Now, after receiving his gold card earlier in the year and watching Tommie blow out the candles on her 13th birthday cake, that time has finally come.
And Kevin couldn’t be more proud or pleased with how it’s all turned out. It’s been “one hell of an enjoyable adventure” so far, he says, and thankfully all those fears and worries he had have failed to come to fruition.
“I was a bit self-conscious about being a father again at 52,” admits the former Fair Go host. “My other fear was that Tommie might reject me for being an old guy and it might be awkward.”
But skip forward 13 years and it’s impossible to deny the close bond the two have.
This 2001 Weekly cover, celebrating the happy news, got Kevin into a lot of trouble.
“It’s the greatest thing that could’ve happened to this end of my life,” Kevin tells, adding that, if anything, being older has only made him a better father.
“By the time I was 52, I’d already nailed an awful lot of the things I wanted to achieve, particularly workwise, so I could give all my time to Tommie. As a result, I think our relationship is actually closer than those I had with the others.”
Kevin and his wife Linda (57) are also parents to three sons, Alex (31), Rory (28) and Jake (23), and while they learnt their fair share from parenting the boys, Kevin says it’s been a different kettle of fish having a daughter.
“It’s been a very special thing. I loved watching rugby matches in the freezing rain with the boys, of course, but I don’t know that I could’ve gone through all that again,” laughs Kevin.
“Going to watch ballet with her and all the other interests she has – those more sedentary pursuits – has really suited me.”
Her latest interest is thrilling for Kevin – she’s become a keen swimmer and has her dad out of bed at quarter to five most mornings to drive her to the pool. “Sometimes we’ll sleep in the same room, so we can chat and then get up early without waking the whole household.”
Kevin with Linda, his wife of 36 years, their youngest son Jake and Tommie. Their other two boys are currently in the UK.
He proudly shows off her bedroom wall, which is covered in swimming ribbons, and tells of her latest achievement: qualifying for her first national swimming competition. “We love talking about swimming and all kinds of things,” says Tommie, who describes Kevin as “the best dad”.
“For now!” Kevin laughs. “Soon, of course, she’s supposed to turn into this horrific teenager, but just look at her – she doesn’t seem likely to do that. Besides, she’s promised me! I think she respects that I’m a wee bit older and she’s got to look after me more than cause me grief in these years.”
Tommie’s quick to nod her head and smile in agreement, “I know, Dad. I will!”
Since giving up most of his telly-presenting duties, Kevin’s relishing being a “house-husband” while Linda works at the local kindergarten.
“I bring Tommie home from swimming, make her lunch and drop her at school. And I make dinner every weeknight.” He’s there to pick up Tommie from school each day, and once every week or two, they’ll have a father-daughter trip to a café. “Tommie can tell you what the iced chocolates are like in every café in Kapiti,” he smiles.
Ballet, swim training, school lunches, late-night chats… Kevin’s in the whirl of family life and loving every moment.
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, though. One of Kevin’s greatest worries before having Tommie was his health not holding up. It was certainly put to the test at times – the most terrifying, in Kevin’s mind, being his 2004 open-heart surgery to replace his aortic valve. Tommie was just three.
There’s a constant reminder of that time: an envelope with Tommie’s name on it, tucked away in Kevin’s sock drawer.
“Perhaps I was being over-dramatic, but I was genuinely concerned,” he says.
Kevin’s great fear was that, should the worst happen, young Tommie might not hold any memories of him. So he wrote her a letter so she’d know who her dad was and just how much she meant to him.
It’s sat in the drawer ever since, although it briefly made an appearance one evening. “We started to read it one night,” says Kevin, as Tommie shakes her head. “It was too sad,” she says. “Yes,” agrees Kevin. “So we put it back after only four or five words.”
Tommie has been by Kevin’s side during all his health upsets since then, including his brain surgery, as well as being a pillar of strength for him when Linda was last year rushed to hospital with a brain aneurysm.
“The three boys were all away and I’ll never forget coming home from the hospital with Tommie at around 4am and she just cuddled me to sleep, dead tired,” says Kevin.
“I remember thinking, ‘My God, I’d be absolutely hopeless on my own; I’d be panicking and dreadfully lonely,’ but she was just beaut. She held me together.”
Another blessing for Kevin, he says, is knowing Tommie has a supportive team who are not to be messed with – her three big brothers. “And, of course, the boys will play a bigger role as I age, and that’s nice to know.”
Both the older two, Alex and Rory, are living in the UK, but are very close to Tommie. “In fact,” says Kevin, “when Alex was home, he had a party on his last night with a few friends in town. Tommie wanted to spend every last second with him, so he told her to sleep in his room and he’d wake her up when he got home around midnight. Well, Alex didn’t get home until 5am, to find Tommie sobbing in his bed. So he cancelled his ticket. Just like that. For her.
“He just said, ‘Right, I’ll stay another night.’ God knows what he had to pay.”
Youngest son Jake has finished university and is now in Wellington, enjoying being closer to the family. He says Tommie has it pretty lucky, and refers to the Famous Trampoline Saga, a story he likes to bring up any chance he can.
Tommie has been by Kevin’s side during his health upsets.
As a kid, Jake had been desperate to have a trampoline but Kevin always said “no”. “I assumed he’d enjoy it for five minutes and then it would never be used!” Kevin recalls.
Then one day, Jake drove up the driveway and was met with the sight of a gleaming new trampoline for Tommie. “Jakey couldn’t believe it,” says Kevin, turning to him while Jake says, laughing, “I’m nearly over it!”
It’s one thing, Kevin says, that has changed in his parenting: he’s learnt to say “no” less often.
“I had this old-fashioned view that if you say ‘yes’ to your kids too often, they’d be spoiled or think you’re a pushover. Well, it simply isn’t the case, and they know when you do say ‘no’, it’s for a bloody good reason.”
Thankfully, the trampoline saga is nearly forgotten and Jake is pretty chuffed to have a little sister. It’s caused some funny situations, though.
“One time, my teacher thought Jake was my dad,” says Tommie, dissolving into laughter. Cases of mistaken identity often plague the Milnes. “Sometimes people think Dad is my granddad,” adds Tommie, still giggling. Kevin says they’re used to it. “We’re more worried about how the other person will feel when we embarrass them by correcting them!”
Having Tommie was, ‘the greatest thing that could’ve happened to this end of my life’, says Kevin.
More infuriating for Kevin have been snide comments that he “left his wife and shacked up with some young bird”, which was the conclusion many people jumped to when they saw a 2001 Weekly cover with a youthful-looking Linda.
Kevin’s proud of Linda, whom he’s been married to since 1978 (he says the secret to her young looks is “she puts all the potions on at night, but never much make-up in the day”), but he found the remarks a bit much.
There was an awful moment when a woman came up to him, shaking her finger, “saying, ‘What is it with you telly people, running away with young girls?’ So I pointed to Linda and said, ‘That’s my wife there. We’ve been together for over 30 years; ask her!’ She was mortified.”
There were also a few letters to the editor of the Weekly at the time, calling him an old man who’d never be able to keep up with young Tommie. But even though he spent endless hours crawling round the living room with her or running to the river at the bottom of their property, he says he realised that “giving her my time has been the most important thing I could do – to listen to her, talk to her and have us really know each other.”
His worries of being “an old codger” haven’t panned out, as he’s living an active, full life, enjoying keeping up with pop culture with Tommie and going out for dinners and concerts with Linda, and has only used his gold card once.
While many of his friends are off travelling, he’s realised he’s enjoying something even more valuable in his life.
“I think world trips are perhaps something people take at this age because they’ve nothing else to do but go overseas and stare at things.
“Whereas I feel like we’re still in life. We’re still actually doing it. And what a blessing.”
