An unlikely photo taken of the burning swan in Caterham, 1988.And that is the story of how my parents met. The way my mother tells
it is incredibly romantic, as if it was anyone’s dream come true,
except the swan’s, of course. She always had a way of making
things look bigger than they really were.
She would say things like, “Josh, sweetums, the bathroom is
overflowing with water.” I would run to check, and there would be only
a few tiny drips on the tiles. No cause for alarm!
My father’s account of their romance was more straightforward.
“Oh well, it was love at first sight,” he would say. “We met each
other on a job and we knew we were destined to be together. The
stars aligned, the planets reversed their orbits, the moon eclipsed the
sun and the birds flew south for the winter.”
Like my mother always said:
“You can tell a lot about a person by the way they react to a
burning swan.” She is so wise.
“It did not take long to realise we were meant to be together,
Josh, my little possum. He asked me out on a date and we met up
again the very next day. Your father sure knows how to treat a lady
right. In those few weeks of getting to know your father, I felt like I had