Epilogue

Finishing a story is always difficult. Now the wrong side of seventy, I often look back with nostalgia to the old close family way of life we enjoyed for many years. The Sunday-night teas, when there were always some of the brothers and sisters present. The holiday get‑togethers, especially at Christmas, and the weekly worship at church or chapel. This especially has given way to car rides and trips out on Sundays. My visits to church and chapel grew fewer and fewer, a fact that I am not at all proud of today, and which must have grieved my mother at the time. Nevertheless, the influence of a Christian home still stays with me. There were many times in my life when the thought of my parents, long since dead, would steady me up, knowing that if they had been alive they would have disapproved of some intended action into which I was about to rush.

The belief that death is not the end, but another beginning, has never left me. What better than to leave it to my father to wrap it all up. One day when we were discussing the possibility of a life after death he said "Well my boy, it may or may not be true, but even if it turns out to be a myth, it's a comforting and glorious one to believe that we shall all be reunited somewhere, some day".



THE END