(not suitable for children)   In which we kids wandered fields and woods far beyond the jurisdiction of parents and neighbours and learned from each other scary facts about the taboo subject of ‘dodgy men’.

  In which my grandfather plays an inscrutable hand of cards, stokes engines on Channel Islands paddle steamers until the age of 65, smokes a lot of Capstan Full Strength cigarettes and entrances a small boy by constructing a fully-rigged ship in a bottle

(contains some language unsuitable for younger children)   We would not go hungry. We would be comforted. We were to be protected from preventable disease. We were to aspire. We were to have knowledge and then to know even more, right out to the very boundaries if we wished.