My childhood here... was very limited. So it was a long, long time before I actually went out to Brooklyn.

I don't absolve my father completely of his responsibility for what he did to us I feel compassion, maybe. He had his demons. But I still can't understand how a man can walk away from children. And leave them to starve, as we nearly did, if it wasn't for my mother going out and begging.

The main thing I am interested in is my experience as a teacher.

I asked my dad what afflicted meant and he said 'Sickness son, and things that don't fit.'

He sits in an old armchair in the corner covered with bits of blankets and a bucket behind the chair that stinks enough to make you sick and when you look at that old man in the dark corner you want to get a hose with hot water and strip him and wash him down and give him a big feed of rashers and eggs and mashed potatoes with loads of butter and salt and onions.I want to take the man from the Boer War and the pile of rags in the bed and put them in a big sunny house in the country with birds chirping away outside the window and a stream gurgling.

You have to give yourself credit, not too much because that would be bragging.

If you were mean to your parents, they'd give you a good belt in the gob and send you flying across the room.