Just as I finished the manuscript of this book and was about to send it to the publisher, H died. I had visited him about four days before. It is too early for me to be clear what exactly H's death means to me. I certainly regret the fact that I came to know him so late in his life, when he was already very frail, that it was not possible to forge a proper relationship with him. But when I reflect that he might easily already have been dead when I found out about him I am pleased to have had the chance to meet him at all.

In the last five years I saw H about seven or eight times, sometimes in the company of my siblings from H's wife, who have been extremely kind to me and to whom I am profoundly grateful for their warmth. I do not know whether I might have wanted to see him more often, but he emphasized when we first spoke that he did not want his life to be changed in any way by my appearing in his life and was obviously frightened at the thought that I might want him to have something to do with my Hamilton siblings or my mother.