‘I’m a dad to 13 children and grandad to 25 - Father’s Day is like Christmas’

As parents of 13 kids, Pete and Tracy Lewis’s hands are a lot fuller than most – especially as they also have 25 grandchildren. But despite their busy family life, the couple wouldn’t have it any other way – no matter how “mad” people on the outside may think they are.

Now that Father’s Day is almost upon us, things in the Lewis household are that little bit more special.

“It’s like what we do at Christmas time – we just have an open house,” says Pete, 64. “If the kids want to come over and see Dad on Dad’s day or Mum on Mum’s day, that’s fine. If they want to go and see their partner’s parents, that’s also fine. But we’ll speak during the day.

“To be honest, on Father’s Day I get spoilt rotten with presents. I used to get a lot of pairs of socks and cups with ‘Dad’ on and stuff like that. Now they communicate with each other and they vary things. Some of them will get together and buy a present between them, which is nice. I had a lovely iPad once, so I’m very lucky.”

With their open house policy in place, Pete’s grandchildren will also visit him and Tracy, 60, and he’s sure they’ll be “on their best behaviour” for the special day. There will certainly be lots of cards for Pete to open and heartwarming messages to read.

“I get a card from each of my children and then various amounts from the grandchildren. I’d say around 60% of the grandkids – the older ones – will send a card. That may involve them making their own card, which is a lovely touch,” he says.

As Euro 2024 makes its way on to our screens, football is likely to feature in some shape or form for Tottenham Hotspur and Bournemouth fan Pete.

“I expect he’ll get an England top – he normally does when the football’s on because we love watching it together,” Tracy says. “One year the children got him a football top with ‘13’ printed on the back to represent them being 13 kids.”

Having a big family wasn’t Pete and Tracy’s initial plan. When they met at a nightclub in Bournemouth, it was love at first sight for the pair, who recently celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.

“We always said we’d have four children because when we were a lot younger, everybody seemed to be having two,” says Pete, who has a 48-year career as a coach-builder. “We thought it would be more fun for the children that we had, so they could play together. We had four and we got into a bit of a routine with coping quite well and, next thing you know, 13.”

Feeling blessed

Tracy adds, “We are blessed to have 13 healthy children. I wouldn’t change it. I’m very lucky and I’m very grateful for just having those babies. I never thought I’d have 13 children but, when I met Pete, he was such a caring man from day one of meeting him.”

Together the couple have Carly, 40, Tracy Jr, 39, Samantha, 38, Charles, 37, Lyndsay, 36, Danielle, 34, Chantelle, 32, Charlotte, 31, Georgia, 30, Candice, 28, Shannon, 25, Shaznay, 23, and Porsha Mercedes, 21. Although Porsha Mercedes is the only remaining child at home, growing up with so many people under one roof was no mean feat and Tracy, who works as an administrator at a car dealership, jokes that she and Pete used to be the “manager and the manageress of a hotel”.

Bringing up their children was like a military operation and food shops alone required four shopping trolleys, as the family got through eight pints of milk per day.

“We used to go through the massive boxes of washing powder because we had industrial washing machines. But the water tank in our old house wasn’t big enough for our family and one time the kids all had shampoo in their hair but no water would come out of the shower because the washing machine was on at the same time,” recalls Tracy. “I’ll never forget it. We had to heat water up in the kettle so it was warm and I could rinse the children’s hair off.”

A memory mishap

Even the school run required immense planning. Although that’s not to say it wasn’t without its blips, as the pair admit that mistakes did happen.

“On one occasion I did the school run and there were about four different pick-ups,” Pete says. “Danielle was at nursery and I’d picked up about seven children and brought them home. As they sat at the table having tea, Tracy went, ‘Where’s Danielle?’ My heart sank, so I raced to the nursery but it was closed. There was a note on the door that said, ‘I’ve taken Danielle home’, alongside a phone number, which I called and was given an address.

“The nursery worker wasn’t too happy and neither was Danielle. I apologised profusely and took Danielle home but it still niggled me, so I went to Tesco to get two boxes of chocolates and some flowers and went back to apologise again. The member of staff was strict but she eventually cracked a smile. I think she forgave me.”

The couple now have plenty of grandchildren to devote their time to. Although they notice differences in the way their children parent their own kids, there’s plenty of parallels in how they bring them up.

“Right through from when they were babies to adults, I always used to play music by The Beautiful South and they’d love to sing along. Now they play that to their children, would you believe?” says Pete. “It does tickle me to see our children doing similar stuff with their kids that we did for them, whether it be music or even holidays.”

It’s clear that both Pete and Tracy are savouring every moment they have with their family. “It’s your job to love your kids,” says Tracy. “It doesn’t matter that they’re all adults – you will never stop caring for them. Even in their forties, they call me up in need of advice. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”