I've got to admit to being amazed and pleasantly surprised at the many kind responses to Dicky's song. He was a very modest man but would have been proud that something he wrote was being discussed some 60 years later. Mind you he was always making songs up just to entertain us kids, he was like that. I think he was trying to make up to us his grandchildren, what he could never do for his own kids. That said, i suppose that his kids accepted their lives as they were, as it was all they knew, and you never actually miss what you never had. Dicky was and is dearly loved and missed by all those who knew him. As an aside, i remember him telling me that Brendan had one of the sweetest singing voices you ever heard, a real quireboy. But he had the demons in him, that could take over instantly, and for no apparent reasons? For all that, Mickser, Dicky's son remembers him as a kind generous man who to all intents and purposes changed his life. That boat fare was the making of Dicky's son, as he established a fairly successful company in Norfolk. At least one of Dicky's kids made good, so that could be considered fair recompense for the song perhaps?? I know grandad would have considered it so, with the caveat of two Guinnesses on top aswell (LOL)!!!