I grew up, somewhat displaced, on a small farm in south Sligo, in the beautiful west of Ireland. We lived near the village of Aclare, snuggled on the lee side of the Ox Mountains which kept the worse of the Atlantic storms at bay. It was my home for about fifteen years, from age two to seventeen when i departed for college and whatever life might hold.

We had been uprooted from our home in England in suburban Windsor when my grandfather, who lived alone, became ill, and we returned, my Irish father, my English mother, my siblings and i, to care for him and the farm. I was too young to remember but not too young, i suspect, to be emotionally rendered.

Our new home had no telephone in those early days and communication was by letters, often tear-stained, both in the writing and the reading.

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