" wished I had known my father for what he was and my ignorance of the life he had lived filled me with pain. As I drove out of London I tried to recall my memories of him and found I could not remember a single conversation between us which had meant anything. I could visualise him, a small figure, always well-dressed, standing on the touchline at school matches or on the boundary of the cricket field and being pleased at what I had achieved.  I remember him buying me a pint of beer when I was eighteen and smoking a cigarette with him. But what he thought and what he felt he never stated, and nor did I. He died too early for me to know him and I became a man too late for him to be my friend. I felt now I was on a journey to discover a person I thought I already knew and in the process might learn something about myself.      The road north flashed by, my mind filled with the "

― P.B. North , Leaving Pimlico