Mapping my Father

Posting the map with what was going down in the week of Reggie's death has been all
Proustian for me. A dip in my Memories of my father. That week, those events, I see now are the key to Dad's emotional landscape. A week in the life of a 16 year old, including the night I knew a little about: the night he went camping with his cool big brother and woke up to a dying brother,but also the other days and nights in Aylesham - the scale of the troubles.

Even Reggie's death, until I went looking, I had half thought of as a family legend .

As a kid I'd argue politics with Dad , he was conservative (leftish), only reactionary when we got to talking about miners, I can understand now how he got to that place. Miners and farmers were both caught in a tough spot. Nobody had told me about Reggie's death then, and he never mentioned it.

Funny thing is the name that's worrying at me is Henry Plumtre's, I am sure that I had come across him before George mentioned the issue of mineral rights when I visited Aylesham,(I'll come to that) . Is it just my mind playing tricks, just some derisive reference Dad made about the acquisition of the title, means nothing-neighbours might be expected to be mocking if you acquire an old title?

Maddeningly, elusive conversations flap forward in my memory as the Aylesham story gives me a clearer picture of my father.