Playwright Christopher Fry long ago wrote that ‘The bridge by which we cross from tragedy to comedy and back again is precarious ... if characters were not prepared for tragedy there would be no comedy ... their hearts must be as determined as the phoenix ... what burns must also light and renew’.

This extension of Fry’s own family history, following on Can You Find Me. brings to life, as if from the ashes, a shadowy and endearing Uncle Charlie. This kind of phoenix can never be too frequent. One wonders how many more families have hidden away similar sketchbooks which an ancestor created primarily for the eyes of his family. Yet where else would one find a nephew with the sensitivity and poetic vision to produce such an enchanting labour of love?