ABSTRACT
My first grandchild was bom as my father lay dying. The old man, his white hair lolling on the pillow, would enquire huskily, “Is the baby bom yet?” He was waiting. At the other end of the country a young couple, in the full bloom of health and scarcely a year married were waiting too. Still further away, in Aberdeen, I was busily going about my business, making a television programme charting the fate of a whistleblower penalised for his conscience. The producer and crew were well aware I was expecting an important family phone call. It came at 10.30 at night, at which point we adjourned for drinks to the hotel bar. The next morning I flew to Heathrow and drove directly to the cottage hospital where a room was already filling up with flowers. My father went on waiting.
