On the nights when I really can't sleep, I lie there wondering what might have kept Dad awake.

Did he have an imaginary walk, or a particular journey he took in order to relax his mind?

Get in the car... past the village green, the pub, the school, the bus stop... up looms the shadow of the brush factory he used to be in charge of... the smell of the timber yard... the hum of the train in the railway station... down the narrow lane towards the beach... and oblivion.

That's only my version of it, mind. My version of a route he might have taken one night in Oldton.