A pilgrimage or a wild goose chase

Of course I should have known better than to go on a pilgrimage to salute a long dead grandfather who had managed to live really secretly right next to the family dining room. 

Holed up might be a better term for his residency. His Southampton home overflowed with my

family, the family I was born into, and we three sons, two parents, my grandmother, and an uncle filled the modest space.

We boys shared one room, parents another, our maternal grandmother a further separate room, and the uncle yet another.

That sounds a lot of rooms for a small two-storey home because in addition, of course, was that stately bedroom my grandfather had to himself.

A pride-of-the-family room

His was a sort of pride-of-the-family room, leading as it did into the dining room, the most occupied and busiest part of the house in Bitterne Park, close to the historic Itchen River.

I might have been three, maybe four, when as a special treat for 'being good' I was introduced to the gentleman. He lay in a single bed, surrounded by mountains of books and papers, as you might expect of a dedicated teacher and headmaster.

A head didn't raise from the pillow. There was no movement. An electric heater stood menacingly between us as if it might be a bulldog on watch.

Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com