Durng my nightly phone call to my mother, I asked her if she remembered me reading the book about the ship on fire mentioned in the post below.
She didn't. "It's not like me to let you read a book like that," my mother says, "given how much I run a mile from anything violent."
It's true. She's an avid news freak - but any mention of war, earthquakes, refugee camps, starvation and she's channel hopping away, even to the snooker which she abomnates. And she's always been like that - metaphorically hiding behind the sofa.
So why wouldn't she, all those years ago, been my sympathetic when I read about a ship in flames at see - probably accompanied by an Illustration?
Perhaps I made the story up, or dreamt it. (I find this thought disturbing)
"What made you start thinking about this?" my mother asks, sounding almost alarmed. "Are you thinking of writing your autobiography?"
