Seth's father explains that he has regretted every day that he has been a harsh father to him.

He was, as Eyman puts it (without following up on the thought), "at ease" with only one kind of relationship, "the harsh but loving father and an eager-to-learn son-supplicant."

Lord Bristol was alleged to have been a harsh father to his oldest son, according to friends of the latter.

Another woman, herself the child of a harsh and punitive father, recalls the day she threw a curtain rod at her toddler because he'd spilled potato chips over a just-vacuumed rug.

Equally revealing is a rare autobiography by an impoverished Norfolk farm labourer's son, who had turned professional poacher and been disowned by his harsh father.

She gives him a harsh, uncomprehending father who wants only a manly man for a son.

The classic American man may have fled west after escaping from a harsh father, but this is something else.

(His mother was distant, his father harsh, his wife neurotic.)

Many of these visions are about Emily's sad childhood under the care of her harsh father and distant mother.

Michael, he wrote, was a "small sensitive child - the runt of the litter with a harsh and occasionally violent alcoholic father who both ignored and abused him."