My Mentor: Amanda Platell on Frank Platell

My dad started off as a runner on the West Australian in Perth when he was 14 years old. He worked his way up, as you could do in those days, and he's been on the same newspaper all his life. He's 78 and he still works two and a half days a week.

My dad started off as a runner on the West Australian in Perth when he was 14 years old. He worked his way up, as you could do in those days, and he's been on the same newspaper all his life. He's 78 and he still works two and a half days a week.

During the holidays I used to spend as much time hanging out at the West as I could, learning how to put the paper together properly, and my dad got me to write some stories for the paper.

He never tried to make out that journalism was anything other than a really tough business and especially tough for women. He said: "You're going to have to work twice as hard as the men, and you'll be treated variously with contempt and suspicion. If you want it, it's going to be really, really hard." And it was hard. Even though I had a degree in politics and philosophy, they just put me on the beauty beat.

But my dad was always full of really great advice like: "Always go to work dressed well because if a big story breaks and you're looking scruffy they won't send you. If you look smart you will catch people's eye, so always wear your lippy." I've taken that to heart. The first big break I got was on the Perth Daily News and the only reason I got it was because I had a nice dress on.

One of the things he warned me about but I didn't take enough notice of was that being an exec on a newspaper smashes families up. He was on the fast track to becoming an executive but about halfway through his career he realised that he'd never see us, so he became the motoring editor and then housing editor.

I still send him and mum everything I write and they get the New Statesman.

My dad was an incredible inspiration, a very hard-working, decent man. The only thing I don't take after him in is the fact that my dad has never said an unkind word about anyone in his entire life, and I have to say I do make some of my living occasionally saying unkind things about people.

Amanda Platell is a columnist for the Daily Mail and the New Statesman