Hi again Papa,

Writing to you has always been difficult for me in the sense that I feel that I, out of all my family, are now closer to the ideal that you tried to instil in me. It may seem to the outsider, an arrogant affection on my part. I know that you understand, in my dichotomised childhood, my parents and the polite English society around me all showed only public masks and told private lies. I have always been in awe of your certainties, and I have been equally ashamed of my frailties. Like Peter at the cross I have denied your beliefs many times to save what I thought was my own dignity, peace of mind or maybe my own skin. Maybe it will make some amends for my neglect of you if I write more often than before, and with as much candour as my last letter you liked so much.

My thoughts turned to you the other night, well, more accurately, dwelled upon you and our times together in my childhood and adolescence. It was in the wee hours of the morning, those hours when demons come to gibber and dance at the foot of the mattress and only the fierce angels of positive thought can dispel them. As I lay on my comfortless bed, I tried to stop the endless rat maze whirling in my brain. To distract the demons and dull their sharp bites, I switched on the TV. Lo! I was confronted by a beautiful vision, a homage to the bespoke tailor’s art. I have worn many costumes and disguises in my life but this beautifully tailored, French-cuffed, manicured and well spoken man held me spell bound. As he sat at his low, oaken table that groaned under the weight of supplicatory letters he looked the very epitome of the best friend we all aspire to deserve. He was avuncular, kindly and with an understanding, compassionate twinkle in his eye, this peerless ensemble complimented by his impossibly white teeth. He appeared ethereal in his grace and economy of movement. He was softly spoken ,every vowel and consonant was rounded so as to caress the electronic atoms linking us. He spoke of love, hope, renewal, the joys of giving and sending a small amount of cash to further the wonderful cause that he was espousing.

As I watched this perfumed and manicured snake oil salesman spruiking his endless message of healing redemption and tax free travel to the “holy land” (As if some parts of earth should be more revered for their existence than others), I remembered when I, as a small boy, had asked you about “God”. He, She or It was something to which I had paid but little attention up until this remembered day. I was of our Scots home of comfortable, loving, but atheist Communism. I was also of my parents’ confusing abode in England, where spiritual curiosity was not encouraged. This house was where my mother’s timid Presbyterian paralysis of the soul uneasily cohabited with my Freemason Father’s unconvinced and sporadic Anglicanism.