A playgroup without a mum in sight? Maxine Gordon talks to dads who want to have fun with their kids too.

IT'S Saturday morning and the room fills with the welcome smell of bacon butties. Faces light up as Alison Jones arrives with a plate laden with hot sarnies for everyone.

This treat is just one of the benefits to dads who have given up their Saturday mornings to come to this breakfast playgroup in Clifton, York.

The real reward is the opportunity for them to spend time having fun with their kids.

Tom Pollock, 30-year-old dad to Bailey, five, Willow, three, and Byron, 18 months, is a regular of the breakfast club which meets on the first Saturday of the month at the Clifton Family Centre, Burton Green.

The idea is simple enough: dads bring their offspring to the centre for the two-hour session, where the kids can play with toys and the dads can play with them too as well as chat to other fathers. Oh, and everyone can have a bit of breakfast too.

Tom, a project manager from Clifton, said: "It's a great opportunity to spent time with the children, which perhaps you wouldn't get to do.

"It's also time with your children where they get to do something they want to do and you are not dragging them around the shops, a museum or some tourist attraction.

"They get to come to a room full of toys where they can play and you can get down to their level and play with them too."

And Tom sees a real benefit from taking his children to the group. "It provides a bonding time for dads. I'm lucky because I can work from home a lot, so I get to see my youngest children during the day, however, my eldest is at school. So it is nice for me to spend time with all three of them together."

Simon Biddlestone, a 27-year-old teacher, is another regular of the breakfast club. He has three children, Sam, four, Hannah, two and Isaac, three months.

He said: "There are a lot of activities organised for the kids to do and there are always lots of toys for them to play with."

Like Tom, he started attending the Saturday morning club after joining the weekly Paint And Pizza group, a dads-only club for men in the Clifton area.

This group meets on Wednesday evenings at the Burton Stone Lane community centre. Here, the focus is on doing activities, such as making toys for children or using video and computer facilities and sharing a pizza over a friendly chat.

Both Tom and Simon admit it was their wives who persuaded them to join up for these groups - but say once they'd made the first step they enjoyed themselves.

Of the Paint And Pizza group, Simon said: "It's really good. At first we did projects such as painting the community house. Then we started painting chairs and made toy boxes for our kids. We've also learned to do things on the computer."

Both groups have been set up by Sure Start, a government initiative to help families with young children in areas which have been identified as having specific disadvantages. Besides Clifton, there is also a Sure Start programme in Foxwood.

Alison Jones of Sure Start explains: "Part of our remit is to contact families or individuals who are hard to reach or who do not have any local services already in place. Dads fell into both these categories."

A pilot group was set up two years ago where dads were invited to paint a chair for their children and get some food into the bargain - for free.

"The group was supposed to run for six weeks but by the time it was underway dads, and a couple of granddads, were asking if it could continue," said Alison.

And so the Pizza And Paint nights were established. This in turn led to the monthly Saturday breakfast club because dads wanted to do something with their kids too.

So what do dads talk about when they all get together? The answer, according to Simon, is the same as what mums talk about: the challenges of bringing up a family.

"We talk about all that sort of stuff and it's good that there are Sure Start workers there too because if people have a specific problem about their children or relationship then they can help you themselves or point you in the right direction.

"The nice thing about it all is that it's good to know there are other people all going through the same thing."

For more information about Sure Start in York, telephone 01904 672825.

Updated: 09:20 Tuesday, March 08, 2005