Skitty,

You know I've been packing boxes getting ready to return to the land of my fathers, the land of song, Wales.

While doing this I stumbled accross an old, occasional diary I kept from when I was about your age.

It's fascinating, almost like a time capsule, as though I'm talking to myself across the weight and wealth of years that have since passed.

When I was your age, the cold war was a very real worry. The arms race was escalating, social order was falling apart, the dead laid unburied in the streets.

We had stockpiles of candles for when the lights went out and huddled together in the dark, telling tales, marvellous tales, of ships and of stars and of Isles where good men rest. The dark closed in so that we could almost touch it, we had returned so quickly to the terrors of absolute night.

And I had dreams, such terrible dreams. Of the end of the world, just a touch of a button away. I had worries, what would become of me? What of my family? My stupid faithful hound?

'it was just a rumour that was spread around town, by the women and children, soon we'll be ship-building, diving for dear life, when we should be diving for pearls'

And then we went to war. Some of my classmates fell from planes, sailed for thousands of miles in a convoy to a land we'd never known and oh how we cheered for the terrible beauty we'd made.

And they died. Were burnt, maimed and wounded horribly as we watched Sir Galahad sink to a watery grave.

'The higlands and the lowlands are the roots my father knows,
The holidays at Oban and, the towns around Montrose
But even as he sleeps, they're loading bombs into the hills
And the waters in the lochs can run so deep, but never still

I’ve thought of having children but I've gone and changed my mind
Its hard enough to watch the news, let alone, explain it to a child
To cast your eye across nature, over fields of rape and corn
And tell them without flinching not to fear where they've been born

Then someone sat me down last night and I heard Caruso sing,
He’s almost as good as Presley and if I could only do one thing
I’d sing songs to my father, I’d sing songs to my child
It’s time to hold your loved ones while the chains are loosed... And the world runs wild

And even as we speak, they’re loading bombs onto a white train
And how can we afford to ever sleep, so sound again?'

(Everything but the girl)

Every generation has its own cross to bear, sometimes life can be hard, as is mine right now. But there have been so many more good times than bad, and the good times will come again. Remember that old addage, that the night is always darkest before the dawn.

And by all means unload whenever you fell like it Skitty.

yechydda,