Though a biological fact in my story, my great-grandfather remains a ghost as far as the law is concerned

Even when he was alive, my grandfather was always like a ghost, coming towards me but never quite clear. He told me stories of Pillar Box Farm with the fen dancing and hiring fairs, the isolated village communities that had long disappeared. Gave me gifts which were ­imaginative and somehow eccentric, nothing the rest of the family recognised or understood: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde instead of Treasure Island; Huckleberry Finn instead of Tom Sawyer.

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