We ended up talking half the night, telling our favourite stories about Dad, Mum recalling among other things the time he took an air rifle to the backyard and shot a pigeon with the intention of flogging pigeon meat in the shop. I can't imagine there would have been much demand for game in inner-city Wolverhampton, but the smell of the resulting flesh in the shed was such that my vegetarian mother wouldn't let him back in the house until he had got rid of it. In return I remembered how he would always buy a family pack of popcorn when we went to the cinema, find three smaller cartons and then stand in the corridor dividing it all. At the time I found it mortifying, lived in fear of being seen by a schoolmate, but telling the story, I found it touching, and not for the first time that week, fell to sleep on a damp pillow.