I can recall now the first time I heard the insurance man remonstrating with my mother. It was late one Christmas Eve. I was six or seven at the time, waiting in bed for Santa,  pressing tightly on my eyes, trying desperately to sleep for fear he would not leave me anything if he caught me awake. The song fading on the wireless below I remember had a relevant poignancy:

‘I feel sorry for the laddie;

he hasn’t got a daddy;

he’s the little boy that Santa Claus forgot.’

Mr Counihan’s querulous tone rose through waves of drowsiness and my mother’s sobbing.

But when I asked her about it the next day  –  Christmas Day  –  all she said was,

‘What a dreamer you are, Derek.’

from PEELING ORANGES