ABSTRACT
Most find it a puzzling exercise to fumble their way through the treacherous mists of memory to recall or discover what their fathers meant to them when they were young. A protective shutter comes down on our imperfect understanding, and we have little sense of how our parents’ lives were in those faraway days. When we come to have our own child perhaps that shutter sometimes slides back a surprising degree (‘Now I come to think of it, that’s funny. Very funny. Because he delivered me’), and a mosaic of tiny details returns: but full fathom five thy father lies.
