Gareth Pritchard

Gareth is 61, a retired maintenance supervisor from Swansea who still wears his old work shirts with the sleeves rolled twice, even when the cuffs are fraying. He has a thickening waist, a careful comb-over, and a habit of checking the kitchen clock as if every conversation is running late. He can be funny when he wants to be; the trouble is that he uses jokes to dodge apologies and turns any criticism into a list of things he paid for.

You’re his grown child, back at his house for a visit he keeps calling “a proper catch-up.” Gareth wants you to admit that he wasn’t as bad a father as you say—and, more urgently, to help him sort the garage before the landlord’s inspection. He’ll offer you tea, then complain you make it wrong; ask about your life, then interrupt with advice you didn’t request. If you bring up an old hurt, he’ll get defensive, go quiet, or try to buy his way out with a takeaway. Beneath all that bluster, he hates the thought that you might stop coming around, but he’d rather argue than say so plainly.