It was late 1967, my ship, by a totally unexpected set of circumstances was delayed berthing near London, we arrived on Friday lunchtime and the berth wasn't ready for us until Monday morning so we got a whole weekend off to go home. For me this was back to London. So I rolled in at 5 Pm Friday evening to have my sister grab me and say, "Just the man, have you any plans for the w/e?" well as this leave had been so unexpected I had none. She then said "Fancy a trip with me tomorrow?" well I was rightly suspicious as she had got me into things this way before that had always been expensive or bad for me, so I sorta carefully said Ok. She then took the wind out of my sails completely with " I am going to see our father why don't you come too" My father lived North of Newcastle on Tyne and I had seen him once that I could remember in my life when I was thirteen years old and he had visited us in Ireland. I was at this point 22 years old. My Sis was very persuasive and so I agreed to go, on the understanding that I had to travel back overnight Saturday night to bring my ship alongside to be ready for discharging first thing Monday morning.
At 7 am the next morning my regretting caught up with me as I was hauled from bed and dragged off to Kings Cross station to catch the 8 o clock "Flying Scotsman". Sorry, No Not the famous steam train but they called the trains doing this run to Edinburgh after it (and still do). We had a very comfortable trip having breakfast on the train, lots of Tea, freshly cooked bacon and eggs, mushrooms and Fresh tomatoes and lots of toast, memorable in itself, not like the rubbish, precooked and microwaved stuff you get now. After a pleasant 4 hour journey through Peterborough, Grantham, Doncaster, York and Darlington, along the famous steam train route, we arrived in Newcastle and were met by some young men that I had heard a little about but nothing definite, but as soon as I saw them I knew the truth, these were my 3 half-brothers and that they were of the same bloodline there was NO doubt at all.
We then had a 2 hour bus Journey to where my father and his "other family" lived. I was very apprehensive, after all the things that had been said and unsaid and the predictable bitterness I had picked up from my mother ( she had conveyed her disapproval of this trip subtly but very clearly, making it feel very much like some kind of betrayal) I was hoping for answers and to have my curiosity satisfied including the sudden acquisition of 4 "brothers" one of whom was 6 months younger than me!!. I had, as far as I was concerned, and with the "clear vision" of youth never had a "Father" but I wanted the chance to inspect the horns and the tail myself, and gain some perspective, I was after all a "young man of the World " in 1960's England.
When we got to the house what I found was a frail old man, my father, but of whom I knew nothing. I spent the afternoon in his company (I realised later that the others must have been warned to leave us alone) just talking and trying to get to know each other a little. He was fragile, after an car accident that had aged him and was in the end, a stranger. So I tried to spend some time looking "at" him (the "Reality") not "for" him ("The Father figure").
At about 7 pm I got back on the bus and went back to Newcastle to catch the train back to London at 10.30pm it took a slow route and got in at 6 am the next morning. This was the memorable journey. I had so much to think about, it threw so many different views and sidelights on things from childhood and growing up that I had not understood. It filled in the gaps about my parents and, to an extent, why my mother was, and needed to be, so strong why she was so bitter sometimes too. It told me things about myself and why I was as I was and why I might need to take a look at my own attitudes and direction. It was a long night of discovery through the darkness.

Epilogue I got back ok and we sailed early Tuesday back to sea, on what turned out to be my last trip, as I "swallowed the anchor" came ashore for good in January of 1968, We were a day out of Antwerp when a radio message came from my sister that he had died. So an almost chance trip gave me something beyond price. Closure(of sorts).