One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is to have a happy childhood. I had a very happy childhood. I had a house and a garden that I loved; a wise and patient Grandmother; as father and mother, two people who loved each other very much and succeeded in their marriage and as parents.

Looking back, I feel that our home was truly a happy home. This was largely due to my father, as my father was a very kind-hearted person. The value of being kind-hearted is not recognized as it should be in our time. People tend to ask if someone is intelligent, hardworking, if they contribute to the prosperity of the community, if they "count" in society. But Charles Dickens approaches the matter wonderfully in David Copperfield: "Is your brother a kind-hearted man, Peggotty?" I asked cautiously.

"Ah, what a kind-hearted man he is!" exclaimed Peggotty. Ask yourself the same question about most of your friends and acquaintances and you might be surprised at how rarely your answer will be the same as Peggotty’s. By modern standards, my father probably would not be approved of. He was a lazy man. It was the era of income earners, and as long as you were an income earner, you did not work. There was no such requirement. In any case, I suspect my father would not have been very good at work.