Putting the 'man' in 'manual'

Does your idea of quality time entail spending hours tinkering under the bonnet of your pride and joy, unmolested by such outside influences as family, friends or even football?

Then you probably possess a Haynes Owners Manual, the Bible of the car enthusiast.

Generations of amateur mechanics have grown up with these indispensable books. And, although many of them will have cherished and loved their cars like newborn babies, it's unfortunately often a different matter when it comes to the real thing. Sad though it is to have to say it, but millions of so-called modern men still wouldn't know one end of a child from the other, which can lead to some pretty unfortunate consequences, one imagines.

Cars and babies do have many parallels however. They both need feeding and washing, they can't go anywhere without you, they're damned expensive to run, they can bring you previously untold joy and they'll all break your heart eventually.

Until now. For those clever people at Haynes have come to the rescue with an Owners Manual for bewildered fathers. It's written by the president of the British Men's Health Forum, Dr Ian Banks, who also penned last year's best-selling Haynes handbook, Man. Banks, a father-of-four, describes it as "a bit of a joke", but with a serious, practical side to it. Rather than take the New Man approach to fatherhood, it goes straight to the nuts and bolts of the physical workings of the infant human.

Banks's book will not tell you how to ensure your offspring is a perfectly emotionally balanced model of serenity or a child prodigy with a penchant for Mahler. It will, however, provide a step-by-step guide to coping with a plethora of everyday baby ills, from cradle cap to itchy feet and all the other stuff in between.

"I don't want to make dads experts in baby talk or the various cures for nappy rash," says Banks. "I want to give them handy tips that will help them cope, not turn them into virtual mothers. The message is they can play a fuller part in caring for baby without having to hang their masculinity on a hook." Well, that's a relief, eh?