Dad's scroll

"I remember when this photo was taken. Kenny's wearing his captain's hat, so he must have been in the Navy for at least five years. Shore leave was always a special time. You can see he's on the verge of nodding off - no doubt he'd been drinking and whoring for at least 48 hours straight before he finally showed his face at home!

"That's one of Dad's spells that he's showing us on the scroll. They never really worked too well. All day long he'd be in his alchemical laboratory, grinding up wasps, boiling our milk teeth in soy sauce. A lot of noise and smells were produced, but never that golden SNES. Although invariably the day's potion would become 'dinner' - that was one piece of magic that did work, I suppose.

"Look at me pushing my hair back. This was before Alice bands, of course.

"I remember that sweater of Dad's, too. When Mum would come back from work and scream at him for spending all the housekeeping on iron filings, he'd just stand there in the kitchen and slowly roll up that polo neck, right up over his face. You could see the circles of his glasses poking through. I think he genuinely believed he was invisible.

"I'm going to burn this photo now, if that's all right with you."